Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Thursday alleged that sacrilege incidents started taking place only after AAP entered the state’s political landscape in 2014.
He also accused the Congress and AAP of playing politics over sacrilege incidents.
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Addressing a rally at Baba Bakala’s Rayya grain market as part of his party’s Punjab Bachao campaign, he said AAP leader Naresh Yadav was convicted in a sacrilege case in Malerkotla despite “desperate attempts to save him by forcing the deputy commissioner to withdraw the case”.
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He said senior party leaders and now ministers Harpal Cheema and Harjot Bains defended Yadav in the court.
He alleged that state Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring too indulged in cheap theatrics over the sensitive issue. He asked why the previous Congress government did not take action against sacrilege perpetrators. Flanked by party’s halqa incharge Baljit Singh Jalalusma, the SAD president asked Warring whether he ever visited any place where 597 sacrileges took place in the past 10 years.
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Sukhbir said the Congress party had only done politics on the sensitive issue and it continued to do so after stopping the SAD from probing the desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib in Bargari. “It has no right to talk about sacrileges,” he said.
The SAD president also took on Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, alleging that he tried to discourage the youth from establishing their own animal husbandry ventures solely because they were envisioned by the SAD.
“It seems the Chief Minister is rattled by both the vision of the SAD in proposing a 75 per cent subsidy for livestock ventures as well as the huge response to Punjab Bachao rallies of the party,” he said