SAD’s protest turns into election rally

The Shiromani Akali Dal’s (SAD) protest at the SDM Office against rejection of papers of the aspirants in the panchayat poll turned into an election rally for the Gidderbaha Assembly bypoll, which is likely to be announced shortly.

The party leaders and workers not just appealed to SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal to contest the bypoll, but also announce his candidature.

This was the first such programme in which Sukhbir participated after being declared a ‘tankhaiya’ on August 30. On October 8, he along with several Akali leaders had blocked the road outside the Mukstar District Administrative Complex and had given a two-day ultimatum to the authorities to revise the list of eligible candidates.

Sukhbir said he would be sarpanch, panch, an MLA and everything for the people of Gidderbaha. “The parliamentary board of the party will decide the name of the candidate for the Gidderbaha bypoll, but I promise that I will be everything for you... Bapu Badal (late CM Parkash Singh Badal) during his last days had asked me to especially take care of people of Gidderbaha and Lambi. You made him the CM and in return, he developed this area,” said Sukhbir.

Former MLA Raghubir Singh Pardhan and several SAD leaders publicly appealed to Sukhbir to contest the Gidderbaha bypoll. The SAD leaders claimed that the AAP government had ‘murdered’ democracy.

Sukhbir said, “The panchayat elections should be cancelled. We have a team of 50 lawyers, who are filing petitions of those whose nominations were rejected in a fraudulent manner. A CBI probe should also be launched to unmask the people behind gross

malpractices.”