Batala, May 11, 2019: Punjab Congress president and party candidate from Gurdaspur Sunil Jakhar questioned former chief minister and Akali Dal patriarch Parkash Singh Badal as to how come that he did nothing when the heinous crime of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib was committed during his government in 2015 while he claimed himself to be Panthic.
He said Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal who also used to claim himself to be Panthic, was the deputy chief minister at that time.
Addressing a election rally at the residence of Bhartia Kissan Union (Mann) President Bhupinder Singh Mann, Mr Jakhar said the Badals should now have the moral courage to confess their culpability in this crime by way of not taking any action against the perpetrators who were arrested only after the Congress government came into power with Capt Amarinder Singh as the chief minister.
Ridiculing Badals, he said it was the government at the centre in which the Akali Dal was a part that imposed GST on Langar of Darbar Sahib. He said these leaders later shamelessly started claiming that the Modi government had provided relief after their intervention.
He said film actor Sunny Deol put up by the BJP against him was manifestation of party’s bankruptcy that has to rush repeatedly to the film world rather than having local leader. He said a person who can’t utter even one sentence could not represent this border area constituency in the Lok Sabha.
He expressed the apprehensions that the security pitch raised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as part of his vote bank politics could hit progress of the Kartarpur Sahib corridor that is to provide direct and unhindered access to the sacred shrine left in Pakistan across Dera Baba Nanak where Guru Nanak Dev spent his last years.
He charged the Prime Minister with playing politics on this issue too by blaming the Congress for having been left out in Pakistan. He said it seems Modi believes only in distrorting history, the lesson that he learnt as a parcharak.
The BKU reiterated its support to the Congress. Mann and its state president Gurdev Singh Mianpur slammed Modi as anti-farmer.
Rural and Urban Development minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa and Cooperation Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa also addressed the gathering