Santokh must apologise on behalf of his father: Sukhbir
BJP-SAD alliance has demanded an apology as Chaudhary’s father allegedly waved a black flag at Ambedkar during his visit to Jalandhar in 1951
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Santokh Singh Chaudhary is brazenly seeking votes from Dalits, even as his father Master Gurbanta Singh showed black flags to Ambedkar during the latter’s visit to Jalandhar in 1951. SUKHBIR SINGH BADAL, SAD chief
JALANDHAR : In a bid to woo Dalit voters ahead of the polls, the SAD-BJP alliance held a rally at Bootan Mandi, to commemorate BR Ambedkar’s birth anniversary, on Monday.
Addressing the gathering, SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal said, “Congress leader Santokh Singh Chaudhary, is brazenly seeking votes from Dalits, even as his father the late Master Gurbanta Singh showed black flags to Ambedkar during the latter’s visit to Jalandhar in 1951.”
Labelling the Congress as an anti-dalit party, he said CM Captain Amarinder Singh was unwilling to pay homage to father of the constitution.
All SAD-BJP leaders, including Sukhbir, BJP state chief Shwait Malik, MLAS Gurpartap Singh Wadala, Pawan Tinu, Baldev Khaira and senior BJP leader Manoranjan Kalia, asked Chaudhary to extend an apology on behalf of his late father.
The Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat (reserved) is in the Dalit heartland of Doaba and Dalits play a vital role in the polls.
NAKODAR FIRING: ‘HAVE NO ANSWERS ’
On the 1986 Nakodar firing, which claimed the lives of four people, Sukhbir said, “I have no knowledge of the issue. The incident took back in 1986 and I have no answers. The 1984 riots and the Nakodar firing are two different issues and cannot be compared.”
Four Sikh men were allegedly killed by the police in 1986 in Nakodar while protesting against sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib.
Congress leaders have blamed SAD candidate Charanjit Singh Atwal, who was speaker of the Punjab assembly, for hushing up the SIT report on the firings.
Atwal in turn passed the buck to the government and said, as speaker of the Punjab Legislative Assembly from 1997 to 2002, he had tabled the SIT report in the Vidhan Sabha, however it was the responsibility of the government to enforce it.
“Chaudhary, who has been an MLA and MP, does not know anything about the functioning of Vidhan Sabha,” said Atwal.