Badal seeks another term to complete development agenda

He claimed that the over 10 lakh people who had come to attend the Maha Vikas Rally (Mega Development Rally) was a clear indication that they have already given a mandate to the SAD-BJP combine to rule for another five years.

Giving the poll cry,Badal senior launched his attack on the Congress—swinging between panthic agenda and development. Blaming the Congress for Operation Bluestar and 1984 anti-Sikh riots,Badal was also scathing on his main Opposition for the state of affairs in Punjab.

“The Congress has had the longest time to rule the nation and it is for all to see the state where they have taken Punjab to. It is time people choose between right and wrong,” he told the gathering.

Badal,who has been the chief minister of the state for four times,said his party was in touch with the grassroots and listed out a series of pro-poor schemes to prove they were on track with the agenda of development. From atta-dal,Shagun,5 marla free plots to SC/BC,free distribution of cycles to girl students under Mai Bhago Vidya scheme to Right to Services Act,waiver of tubewell power bills for farmers and free 200 units of power for poor people,Badal said his party had addressed those very sections of society that the Congress had ignored.

SAD (B) president Sukhbir Badal,who had touted this rally to be the biggest in Asia,exhorted the gathering to give Badal senior another term—his last battle of the ballot.

“It will be our farewell gift for Parkash Singh Badal if we manage to make him the chief minister for the fifth time. The war has begun and it is my belief that each time we have started our election campaign from here,be it in 1997 or in 2006,we have won Punjab,” he said.

Sukhbir also used the opportunity to attack Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president Captain Amarinder Singh. “After we listed our achievements,Amarinder Singh who claimed to have picked up khunda against us has nothing to say now,” he said.

BJP stalwart and Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha,Sushma Swaraj,whose party runs the state in coalition with SAD (B) used the stage to slam the UPA government for “rampant corruption and high inflation”. Party in-charge for the state and former chief minister of Himachal Pradesh Shanta Kumar also picked the Centre on the issue of black money stacked in Swiss banks.