Campaign guns fall silent in Punjab, each party threatens to other

“Pichle dinon Bathinda mein blast mein 6 logon ki jaan chali gayi aur bahut logon ko chot aayi. Bohut dukh ki baat hai, in shaktiyon ko madad Delhi ke mukhyamantri Arvind Kejriwalji kar rahen hain. Is vichardhara se Punjab ko kabhi fayda nahin ho sakta (The blast in Bathinda killed 6 people and many got injured. It is sad that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is helping the forces behind this blast. Such ideology will never do Punjab any good).”

An upbeat Amarinder declared, “In my 47 years of political life, I can predict that this time, the Akalis will not get more than 12-13 seats. So it will be a Congress government. The people have already supported us by coming in large numbers.”

Amarinder said Kejriwal was pushing Punjab back into violence and unrest, and accused the Badals of exploiting religion for political gains. Claiming that Parkash Singh Badal would be found complicit in the recent desecration incident in Bargari, in the event of a fresh probe, Amarinder vowed to throw the Akali veteran into jail.

A few hours before the Congress rally at the Lambi sports stadium, SAD president and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal took out a huge roadshow with hundreds of vehicles through 25 villages in Lambi. “See the response. The people are getting ready to teach a lesson to the ahankari (arrogant) raja. There is a clear wave in favour of Badal sahab. Amarinder as well as the topiwala (AAP) candidate will lose their security deposits,” said Sukhbir.

The SAD president said that his father Parkash Singh Badal stood for “peace and communal harmony” as well as “development”. Punjabis trust “Badal sahab” to take the state forward, and in Lambi there was no other choice, he said.

“Badal sahab lives and breathes for Lambi. The people have always reposed faith in him. This time, he will win by an even larger margin,” he said.

In Ludhiana, AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal, unfazed by the terrorism allegations, held a jam-packed rally in Dakha constituency, where lawyer H S Phoolka is the party’s candidate.

Kejriwal also released a report which, he claimed, was by the Zora Singh Commission set up by the state government to probe the first incident of desecration in 2015 — when the torn pages of the Guru Granth Sahib were found in a Faridkot village — and the deaths of two people in subsequent protests. The report had not been released by the government.

Later, Kejriwal went through Ludhiana city in a roadshow followed by hundreds of vehicles. “Sukhbir knew well that he was not returning to power. In the dirty politics he played, the peace of Punjab was compromised and two innocents were killed in firing. The report has clearly indicted the SAD-BJP government for its inefficient probe in the desecration cases. The influential men of Badals were behind the desecration and the Special Investigation Team (SIT) did not even complete the probe. No culprits were identified because they all are close to Badals,” alleged Kejriwal.

“Only AAP is the honest party. We respect all religions. The people of Punjab will break the record of Delhi now,” said Kejriwal, referring to his party’s near-clean sweep in the national capital two years ago.