Congress stir outside Badal's house 'stage-managed': AAP

Chandigarh: The AAP today called the Congress party's three-day sit-in protest in front of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal's official residence "stage-managed" and alleged that it had "further established the political collusion" between the party and the ruling SAD-BJP combine in poll-bound Punjab.

It accused the Akalis and the Congress of playing a "friendly match" and "trying hard to hoodwink" the people of Punjab while struggling to "prop each other up" in the state.

"The stage-managed Congress agitation against the SAD-BJP government has further established, without a shred of doubt, their complete political collusion in Punjab," AAP's Punjab convenor Gurpreet Singh Waraich said here in a statement.

Claiming that no other political party, pressure group, NGO or any other association demanding justice was allowed to go anywhere near Badal's residence, he said, "The Congress legislators were not only allowed to sit on a dharna, but adequate arrangements were made for their food and night stay during the stage-managed protest show for three consecutive days."

Waraich said anyone, including state Congress chief Amarinder Singh and other senior leaders of the party, was free to join the dharna "as and when they pleased".

"CrPC section 144 is always in force around the chief minister's residence to thwart any unlawful assembly of more than four persons but the Congress leaders had free access to the site of the dharna," he added.

Last night, the Congress leaders called their three-day sit-in off after the state government transferred Ludhiana ADCP-IV Jaswinder Singh in connection with the 'Chitta Ravan' clashes.

They were demanding his suspension for his "bias" in slapping cases on their party colleagues and not against Akali activists who too were involved in the clashes.

Waraich claimed that firstly, the people of Punjab "failed to understand what the Congress agitation was about".

"Secondly, though Amarinder kept saying the party was against the 'Chitta Ravan', he failed to specify who the 'Chitta Ravan' of Punjab was. Not even once did he name state Revenue Minister Bikram Singh Majithia," he said and reminded that it was the same Amarinder who "defended" Majithia when his entire party, including MP Partap Singh Bajwa, was demanding a CBI probe against him.
"So now, Amarinder and his party have lost the moral ground in the agitation against the drug menace," claimed the AAP leader.