Chandigarh, January 10
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today said the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was using the shield of religion to target party president Sukhbir Singh Badal by opening an investigation against the latter to frame him in a false case as part of a vendetta exercise.
The senior SAD leadership including Balwinder Singh Bhundur, Maheshinder Singh Grewal and Dr Daljit Singh Cheema while addressing the media here, said “The AAP government has decided to target the SAD leadership after failing politically. What started as an attack on Sukhbir Badal in the ‘parikrama’ of Sri Darbar Sahib, which proved to be government sponsored, has now resulted in harassment of income tax lawyers in Ludhiana and Bathinda who were associated with the SAD president”.
Asserting that all this was being done as part of a personal vendetta exercise by AAP Convener Arvind Kejriwal against the SAD leadership, both Grewal and Dr Cheema said “Sukhbir Badal will never be cowed down by such tactics. He has continuously exposed the AAP government and its anti-Punjabi policies and will continue to do so forcefully”.
The leaders also condemned the manner in which the arrest of an accountant hired by the Shiromani Committee was being joined with the issue of the 328 ‘saroops’ to target the SAD president even though the main culprit in the case was former SGPC employee Jaspreet Singh who was now serving as the Chairman of the Amritsar Planning Board as well as the Amritsar district president of the Aam Aadmi Party.
The SAD leaders said Arvind Kejriwal was also resorting to a personal vendetta as he was forced to file an affidavit and seek an apology from Bikram Singh Majithia for leveling baseless allegations against the latter. They said first a false case was registered against Majithia and then the latter’s security was pruned severely. “Now it has become clear following an input from the central intelligence that Majithia is a target of the Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) but still nothing is being done to secure him in custody. It seems the AAP government wants to get Majithia eliminated in jail. We demand Majithia be shifted from Nabha jail to a designated jail. If this does not happen and any harm is caused to him, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and Arvind Kejriwal will be directly responsible for the same”, the leaders asserted.
Meanwhile Dr. Cheema announced that a SAD delegation would seek an appointment with the Punjab Governor and apprise him about all the developments taking place to target the senior SAD leadership. He also spoke on how the AAP government was targeting the SGPC, Sri Akal Takht Sahib as well as the SAD leadership and even media persons who were raising their voice in the interest of the people.
Dr Cheema also castigated Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann for not taking any action against Delhi Leader of Opposition Atishi for hurting Sikh sentiments by passing derogatory comments against the Guru Sahiban. “We had hoped that the chief minister would register a case against Atishi and demand that she be thrown out of the party. “Instead of doing that the chief minister is taking action against those who have posted the clip on social media. Is this the respect AAP has for Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur? he asked.
