Cong yatra culminates in Bathinda
Tuesday, 06/12/2011
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20111206/punjab.htm#9
The month-long Punjab Bachao Yatra against the SAD-BJP combine government culminated here today with the state Congress chief Captain Amrinder Singh announcing that if voted to power the Congress would order an enquiry into the attacks by Akali activists on the supporters of the Dera Sacha Sauda after losing most seats in the Malwa region in the last assembly elections in 2007.
Amrinder touched the issue while addressing both rallies, one here and the other at Jhunir in Mansa, apparently because the Dera politics plays a significant role in the elections.
He said those involved in these attacks would not be spared. The police personnel who allowed these riots to take place would also face the music.
He said that in the democracy any individual or group had the right to vote in favour of the party of his choice and no one had any business to retaliate against them in the hostile manner in which the Akalis did after coming to power.
He accused Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal of using arm-twisting methods and forcing Manpreet Badal’s supporters to rejoin his Akali Dal. Amrinder condemned the shameful incident of a lady teacher being slapped by an Akali sarpanch in presence of the Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal in Gidderbaha on Sunday.
He ridiculed the Parkash Singh Badal for denying that all his life he had never resorted to vendetta or registered false cases against political opponents. He pointed out; about fifty thousand Congress workers have been falsely implicated in various cases. “Leave apart the Congress workers, they have not even spared the educated youth who were demanding jobs and have recently booked about 130 veterinarians for attempt to murder after being beaten up just because they tried to meet Badal for seeking jobs.”
Other senior SAD leaders in Bathinda had also beaten women teachers and no action was taken against them.
Maintaining that the Badals had pushed the economy to bankruptcy, he said, the state did not have any money even to make payments under various welfare schemes. "Even the employees were not being provided their dues at the time of retirement", he disclosed.
Amrinder asked the Congress activists not to remain mute spectators to the highhandedness of the Akalis and retaliate if they try to intimidate the common people particularly during the elections.
The rally at Batala had been postponed due to the death of a senior party leader of that area Santokh Singh Randhawa.
The Congress incharge for Punjab, Gulchain Singh Charak, called for ending the “misrule and lawlessness” that the state has seen during the last five years. Moreover, the Congress activists have borne the brunt of the atrocities and now was the time to heal their wounds.
CLP leader, Rajinder Kaur Bhattal ridiculed the demand for honouring Parkash Singh Badal with Panth Rattan. “He should better be declared the traitor of the panth,” she said in the rally at Jhunir. She did not come here to attend the rally.
Among others who spoke on the occasion were, the CWC member Jagmeet Singh Brar, Raninder Singh, local MLA Harminder Singh Jassi and a former minister Surinder Singla.
