Badals denied me ticket for personal gains: Ajnala
CHANDIGARH: Two days after his expulsion from the Shiromani Akali Dal, former Khadoor Sahib member of Parliament Rattan Ajnala accused party president Sukhbir Singh Badal of “conspiring” to deny him ticket to contest the 2014 Lok Sabha polls so that Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal could become a Union minister. The two-time former MP said he was the strongest contender for party ticket as the sitting MP.
CHANDIGARH : Two days after his expulsion from the Shiromani Akali Dal, former Khadoor Sahib MP Rattan Singh Ajnala accused party president Sukhbir Singh Badal of “conspiring” to deny him ticket to contest the 2014 Lok Sabha polls so that Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal could become a Union minister.
Speaking to HT, the two-time former MP said he was the strongest contender for party ticket as the sitting MP. “I have contested four assembly elections and won three. I won from the Khadoor Sahib seat in the 2004 and 2009 Lok Sabha polls. It is clear that Sukhbir wanted to make his wife, Harsimrat, a Union minister. I met then chief minister Parkash Singh Badal at his residence and told him what they did to me was wrong.”
Ajnala, if elected, would have been a three-time MP and a strong contender for Union cabinet berth from SAD, which is an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre. Harsimrat won from Bathinda for the second time in 2014 and is currently minister for food processing in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. The other two Akali Dal Lok Sabha MPs — Prem Singh Chandumajra and Ranjit Singh Brahmpura — are first-time MPs.
Ironically, both Ajnala and Brahmpura, who got ticket from Khadoor Sahib and won, have together raised a banner of revolt against Sukhbir, accusing him and his brother-in-law and former minister Bikram Singh Majithia of dictatorial attitude and destroying the party and Sikh institutions.
The denial of ticket to Ajnala was linked to surfacing of name of Maninder Singh alias Bittu Aulukh, a close aide of Ajnala’s son, Amarpal Singh ‘Bonny’, in the infamous Jagdish Bhola drug case. A former wrestler-turnedcop, Bhola had named Majithia, then revenue minister in the Akali government, in the multicrore scandal, which became the main poll plank of opposition parties against the Akalis in the 2014 parliamentary elections.
As the battlelines are drawn, Bonny on Tuesday recorded his statement in court accusing
Majithia of getting his friend, Bittu Aulukh, falsely implicated to deny ticket to his father. He had made the same allegation in an affidavit dated June 13, 2017 submitted to the Justice Mehtab Singh (retd) Commission, set up by Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh to probe political vendetta cases during the decade-long rule of Akalis.
Majithia had then denied the allegation, saying, “You need to ask the police if they implicate people at my behest and if tickets were given at my behest. Bonny was re-nominated from his seat in the 2017 state elections. So, how can he claim vendetta?”
Rattan Ajnala says the drug charges were made to tarnish their political image.
“They tried to implicate us. I have not spoken for five years. I am speaking now as Sukhbir has destroyed the sanctity of the party and the Akal Takht by getting it to pardon Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim,” he said.
Attempts to reach Sukhbir for a comment proved futile. SAD spokesman and former minister Daljit Cheema said Brahmpura wanted the ticket to contest Khadoor Sahib. “Rattan Ajnala should blame Brahmpura and not Harsimrat for it,” Cheema said.
Both Brahmpura and Ajnala rule out possibility of joining any ‘Panthic third front’ after their expulsion. “Neither me nor my son will contest the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. We are down to 14 seats in assembly. We want a new Akali Dal to emerge. There are many who made sacrifices for the party. They will all join us. The ‘jija-sala jodi’ (SukhbirMajithia) will have to go,” Brahmpura said.
Ajnala said they have spent their entire life in the Akali Dal. “Sukhbir thinks Akali Dal belongs to their family. But it belongs to people and we have their support. We will not join any third front. We want to revive the Akali Dal as it has lost its moorings,” he added.