M A I N   N E W S

SAD’s Moga rally ‘big, but not big enough’
Tribune News Service

Moga, December 18
It was expected to be the “mother of all rallies” and the “largest ever in the world” but Shiromani Akali Dal’s Maha Vikas Rally today turned out to be a classic case of being ‘big, but not big enough’.

Though Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal proclaimed from the stage that 6-8 lakh people were present at the rally, independent observers felt that the figure was much less.

When Sukhbir arrived on the dais at 11.45 am, a majority of the chairs in the ‘pandal’ spread over 250 acres of agricultural land, were lying vacant and remained so till the culmination of the rally.

Much to the embarrassment of the party, people started leaving the venue when Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, the last speaker, got up to address the gathering at around 3 pm. Appeals by senior leader and stage secretary Daljeet Singh Cheema, urging the people to remain seated, went unheeded.

Drawing parallels of today’s rally with the one held in 2006, before the last Assembly elections, observers said, “It was apparent then that SAD had smelled victory. The party then appeared visionary and had something to offer to the people, even if it were slogans of free power and the atta-dal scheme. However, today the speeches lacked the vision and were focused merely on the oft-repeated claims of good governance and development. Even the enthusiasm among the crowd was missing.”