Akalis under fire as ally BJP vents anger over Punjab results
Sunday, 25/05/2014
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CHANDIGARH: The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) faced attacks — direct and indirect — from its ally BJP on Saturday over the relatively bad performance of the coalition in the Lok Sabha polls in Punjab.
On the drug racket controversy seen as a primary poll issue, state BJP chief Kamal Sharma termed SAD minister Sarwan Singh Phillaur’s resignation as a welcome “first step”. Asked by HT about demands of resignations of another Akali minister, Bikram Singh Majithia, he said, “All those named need to come clean.”
BJP veteran Balramji Dass Tandon was agg ressive and took particular note of the AAP winning four seats in Punjab, attributing it to a “volcano of anti-incumbency”.
Amritsar East MLA Dr Navjot Kaur Sidhu again blamed the Akalis for the humiliating defeat of senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley, who had replaced her husband, three-time MP Navjot Singh Sidhu, as the candidate. “Many in the BJP are unhappy with the Akali Dal, but it’s just that they don’t speak up while I do,” she said. CHANDIGARH: Veteran BJP leader Balramji Dass Tandon on Saturday came out all guns blazing over the SAD-BJP’s performance in Punjab in the Lok Sabha polls. While the BJP has virtually swept the country, the coalition could not make a sweep in the state and the SAD has been getting the bulk of the blame.
Tandon said the results — SAD-BJP got six, Congress three and the AAP got all its four seats here — showed “a volcano of anti-incumbency against the SAD-BJP gover nment in the state, resulting in the victory of even AAP candidates”.
On the drug menace, over which an Akali minister has already resigned, Tandon said, “Whereas some political persons are directly involved in this racket, others are patronising police officers who give dividend to them. Had the police force been given clear instructions to deal with all such elements professionally… the situation could never have come to this.”
Tandon ter med the victory of four MPs on AAP ticket from Punjab as “very alarming” for the SAD-BJP: “Strangely enough, no fifth candidate of the AAP has won from any other state, not even from Delhi where they had formed the government only a few months ago… This result from Punjab speaks a lot in itself, and requires very careful and thoughtful analysis,” Tandon added, in a statement issued here.
The issue of lawlessness has also been a long-standing allegation against the SAD’s youth wing in particular. Hence, on a day when state BJP chief Kamal Sharma also noted the need to “come clean” on issues like drugs and mining mafia, Tandon was particularly ballistic over law and order: “The reason for it is that the ‘halqa (constituency) incharges’ (MLA or defeated candidates of the ruling party) were given unlimited power in their respective police stations and also with district police officers,”
“The SHOs are showing overwhelming zeal in carrying out the orders of such halqa incharges, and taking personal interest in resolving their issues. On the other hand, the same police officers are dealing roughly in all other cases, in their traditional way,” he added.
