Chandigarh: Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on Friday launched a scathing attack on the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the run-up to the 2017 Assembly election in the state.
Calling AAP's National Convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal an "agitationist", he said if AAP is voted to power in Punjab, it would "spell doom" for the state.
Sukhbir alleged that AAP's "morality had rotten" to such an extent that it was forging an alliance with someone like Jagmeet Singh Brar who had been "discarded by every political dispensation".
Talking to reporters on the sidelines of the Punjab Assembly session in Chandigarh, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief took a jibe at Kejriwal, saying he had nothing to do with the welfare of the state and its people. Instead, he had "hidden intentions" to become the chief minister of Punjab, he said.
He accused Kejriwal of planning to "use Punjab as a battleground" to further his ambitions of becoming the leader of the "anti-Modi platform" to emerge on the centrestage of the country's politics.
Sukhbir alleged that "agitationist" Kejriwal had failed to spell out "even a single progress-centric measure" of his government in Delhi.
Branding him as a "responsibility shirker", the deputy chief minister said if voted to power, Kejriwal would spell doom for the state's farming community as his constant feuds with the Union government would hamper the prospects of smooth procurement and payments to farmers and would ultimately result in non-lifting of wheat and paddy from the 'mandis' and godowns.
Taking the newly formed fourth front head on, Sukhbir described its main leader Navjot Singh Sidhu as a "rank opportunist" who only wanted to "grab power and even exploit the name of revolutionary martyrs for the same".
"But, the people of Punjab have seen through their devious game plan and would give them a befitting reply," he said.
Acknowledging that Congress was the "main opponent" of the ruling SAD-BJP combine in Punjab in the 2017 polls, the deputy chief minister claimed that its leader Sunil Jakhar was sidelined in his own party and had developed a habit of "talking without facts to create sensationalism and hog the limelight".
