Badal-free Punjab our sole goal: Awaaz-e-Punjab
Tuesday, 27/09/2016
http://epaper.dailypostindia.com/Details.aspx?id=165669&boxid=59380&uid=&dat=2016-09-27
Awaaz-e-Punjab leaders Navjot Singh Sidhu, Pargat Singh, Simarjit and Balwinder Bains in New Delhi on Sunday night.DP
Chandigarh : Recently-floated political forum Awaaz-e-Punjab has said that their only agenda and goal in the upcoming Punjab Assembly elections is a ‘Badal-fee Punjab’ and that they are open to an alliance with the Congress or Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Forum leaders Navjot Singh Sidhu, Pargat Singh, Balwinder Singh Bains and Simarjit Singh Bains met at Navjot’s house in New Delhi on Sunday night and discussed their future course of action.
Simarjit, while speaking to the media, said that in view of the current fluid situation in the state, they did not want to float a political party and divide the anti-incumbency vote, which would only help the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal.
He said they had been fighting against the Badals for some time now and the forum leaders were united in their future fight. He added that the forum would soon disclose whom they would support in the forthcoming Punjab polls.
Meanwhile, suspended AAP leader and Patiala MP Dr Dharamvira Gandhi’s effort to unite a fourth front and take on the traditionally dominant parties in the state, SAD, BJP and Congress, as well as new entrant AAP, failed to gather much steam as neither expelled former AAP state convener Sucha Singh Chhotepur nor any representative from the side of Awaaz-e-Punjab attended the round table conference that Gandhi had organised in Chandigarh on Sunday, even though Pargat Singh attended the meeting in his personal capacity and not as part of Awaaz-e-Punjab. Chhotepur also chose to stay back, sending his representative and AAP leader H S Kingra in his stead.
With Gandhi all but ruling out an alliance with former parent party AAP, it seems that an alliance between Gandhi’s front and Awaaz-e-Punjab, in all likelihood, is off the cards.
