Exit poll not trustworthy, it should be banned, says Sukhbir Badal

GS Paul

Amritsar, March 9

A day prior to Assembly poll results, the Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal demanded a ban on the exit poll by the Election Commission.

Sukhbir, alongwith his family members, paid obeisance at the Golden Temple on Wednesday.

He said that SAD is a Panth Punjab’s organization and voice of Punjabi people and he prayed that the Almighty should give it a chance to serve them. “As Punjab progressed during our earlier terms, we will take it to the path of progress more than that”, he said.

Questioning the credibility of the exit poll, he said that the exit poll and the opinion poll prior to the elections should be banned as these would just be the paid promotions by the parties having least credibility. Citing the example of West Bengal, he said that the results were contrary to the claims of the exit poll.

“Ask any Punjabi about the exit poll, he would never believe it. On an earlier occasion, the exit poll had granted over a hundred seats to AAP, but was restricted to just 20 seats in Punjab. Not only exit polls, but the opinion poll prior to elections too should have been banned with a view to curb influencing the voters. The election commission has been countering every move that could influence the voters, but now the governments resort to ill-usage of public money to do paid opinion polls through the media. This time, AAP did it on a large scale”, he said.

Predicting that Congress would wipe out in the state, Sukhbir believed that the SAD-BSP would pocket at least 16-17 seats in Majha only. “Congress would get less than 20 seats”, he said.

When asked if SAD-BSP could get in to an alliance with any other party post polls, if need be, he kept his fingers crossed saying ‘lodh he nahin paini, Akali-BSP apne dam te Sarkar banayegi (there would be no need for it, SAD-BSP would form government on its own impact).

On the state government’s cold attitude in contributing to the evacuation of Punjabi students stranded in war-torn Ukraine, he said that it was the liability of the state government to have sent a delegation in advance to neighbouring countries of Ukraine to coordinate the evacuation process.

“I request Channi Sahib (CM) to take the call of duty as CM instead of indulging in irrelevant things. I want to remind him that the voting process was already executed and it would not help influencing the voters. Actually, Congress has already accepted its defeat ahead, that’s why it showed no interest in it”, he said.

Kejriwal is anti-Sikh, the Delhi based powers have acted against Punjab’s interests, says Harsimrat

Meanwhile, Former Union Cabinet Minister of Food Processing and currently MP from Bathinda Harsimrat Kaur Badal alleged that the powers that operated from Delhi had always damaged the interest of Punjab.

She opined that the AAP wanted the Punjabis to hold ‘jharu’ instead of Kirpan that had saved the Nation, in their hands.

“Tomorrow they would want the Punjabis to replace their ‘turban’ with ‘topi’. I believe, that this could never be acceptable to our Gurus and the people of Punjab”, she said.

Terming AAP national convener and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal as anti-Sikh and anti-Punjab, she said that he had submitted an affidavit in the court fighting against Punjab’s interests on Punjab Waters issue.