Punjab Deputy Chief Minister and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Badal on Wednesday described Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi as an “alien” who is “oblivious about the ground level situation in villages”.
Slamming Rahul Gandhi for saying that “poverty is nothing but state of mind”, Sukhbir said: “It is surprising that leaders who have not fought even panchayat elections are ruling the country. Without any knowledge of ground level situation, they are framing policies from air-conditioned rooms in Delhi.” “It was Indira Gandhi, who gave the slogan of ‘Gareebi Hatao’ (remove poverty) and now her grandson Rahul is bent upon removing poor from the geographical map of the country,” said Sukhbir while addressing a gathering at Fatehgarh Sahib after administering oath to newly elected village representatives.
Taking a dig at the Congress leadership, he said by closing your eyes to the problem does not solve it but lingers its solution. Sukhbir added that Akali Dal Government introduced several welfare schemes for the poor but the Congress leadership tried to scuttle these. “SAD-BJP Government know the people’s pulse and frames policies according to their actual needs,” he added. “It is laughable that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who decried Punjab’s Atta-Dal scheme as a wasteful expenditure, is copying the scheme in the Food Security Ordinance,” he added.