PHOOLKA’S THREAT TO QUIT A POLITICAL GIMMICK: SAD

A day after Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and senior advocate HS Phoolka threatened to quit as an MLA if cases were not registered against former CM Parkash Singh Badal and former DGP Sumedh Singh Saini for police firing incidents at Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan within 15 days, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Sunday dubbed it as a political gimmick to derive political mileage.

SAD spokesman and former minister Daljit Singh Cheema said the Bar Council of India should cancel Phoolka’s licence for making “unconstitutional and illegal demand to register cases on the basis of a fabricated, concocted and tailor-made report prepared at behest of the Congress”.

Phoolka is well aware of limitations of Punjab government which cannot register any case against Badal on the basis of the Justice Ranjit Singh (retired) Commission report which is “full of conjectures and assumptions”. Cheema said that during a debate on Ranjit panel report in the assembly, Phoolka and AAP members worked in cohesion with the Congress defame Badal. But now, Phoolka was trying to distance himself from the bunch of Congress leaders who had given a clean chit to perpetrators of 1984 Sikh riots.

ATTEMPT TO OBSTRUCT JUSTICE, CLAIMS CONG

Five Punjab cabinet ministers on Sunday dubbed Phoolka’s threat as an attempt to obstruct the course of justice and said such acts do not behove a leader.

Phoolka’s ultimatum to book Badal and Saini within 15 days was a violation of the basic tenets of equity and justice, said ministers Navjot Singh Sidhu, Manpreet Badal, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa and Charanjit Singh Channi.