SAD leader Harsimrat Badal asks BJP why it has gone back on its commitment to release all Bandi Singhs

Sultanpur Lodhi, March 3

Former union minister and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Harsimrat Kaur Badal today asked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to tell Punjabis why it had gone back on its commitment to release all Bandi Singhs, including Balwant Singh Rajoana.

Harsimrat Kaur was speaking to medipersons here after addressing students at a function held to mark International Women’s Day here by the Surjit Foundation during the course of which she urged them to learn from the sacrifices made by women in the past to make a better world for their sisters today.

The Bathinda MP said the BJP as well as the central government was answerable to Punjabis as to why it had gone back on the commitment made to release all Bandi Singhs on the occasion of the 550th birth anniversary of Sri Guru Nanak Dev ji in 2019. Asserting that a notification had been issued to release eight Sikh detainees as well as commute the death sentence of Rajoana to life to pave the way for his release, she said the same was not put into effect. “This has hurt the sentiments of the Sikh community worldwide”, she added.

Harsimrat also accused the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) of betraying the Sikh community by sitting on the release orders of Prof Devenderpal Singh Bhullar. She said the AAP government in Delhi was using one pretext or the other to stall the release of Bhullar since the last one year. She said similarly the AAP government in Punjab had filed an adverse report citing Sikh detainee Gurmeet Singh as a threat to society which had come in the way of his release.

Answering a media query, Harsimrat said chief minister Bhagwant Mann has virtually admitted that law and order had totally collapsed in Punjab and that it needs to be held aloft by posting additional central forces to the state. “Earlier also the AAP government has handed over 50 km territory adjoining the international border to the Border Security Force. Despite this the prevalence of smuggling of both arms and drugs has increased. Law and order has also crumbled altogether leading to a flight of capital from the state as well as heightened sense of insecurity amongst the common man,” she said.

Asserting that Punjab had gone down in every sphere in the last six years, Harsimrat said, “First the Congress government indebted the state to the tune of Rs one lakh crore in five years. Now the AAP government has gone one step further by taking on a debt of Rs 40,000 crore in one year.” She said people were realising that all the promises made by AAP were hollow. “Women and youth are suffering the most. Women were promised an allowance of Rs 1,000 per month. Forget delivering on this, social welfare benefits like ‘shagun’ and old age pension are being cut”. She said similarly the youth felt cheated as the government had reneged on its promise to provide jobs to them.