Tarn Taran bypolls: Sukhbir Badal defends SAD candidate Randhawa, says her family that of ‘Dharmi Fauji’

Warring had earlier taken a dig at the SAD for not having any suitable choice for a candidate from this constituency and instead choosing someone who has links with gangsters.

Randhawa is a retired school principal and her husband Jaswant Singh is known as a ‘Dharmi Fauji’ — a term used to describe Sikh soldiers who had quit their barracks as soon as the Army began Operation Bluestar in Golden Temple in 1984.

Tarn Tarn will be going for bypolls on November 11 while counting will happen on November 14. The bypoll was necessitated due to the death of sitting AAP MLA Kashmir Singh Sohal.

Badal also flagged off trucks carrying 500 quintals of certified seed for flood-affected farmers of Ajnala constituency from Bathinda district. The SAD president, while thanking Akali workers for collecting certified wheat seeds, said more of these seeds would be sent to all flood-affected areas in phases in the coming days.

He condemned Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann for “making a mockery of compensation” by releasing only Rs 1.16 crore to the farmers of Ajnala.

“Only Rs 1.16 crore was awarded for crop loss in Ajnala as of now which covered compensation for only 580 acres of land at the rate of Rs 20,000 per acre. Every village has a land area of around 1,500 to 2,000 acres and crops in thousands of acres were destroyed but compensation at 20,000 per acre has been awarded for only 580 acres,” Badal said.

He added that it was “condemnable” that the total compensation of Rs 5.70 crore, including that for house damage and livestock deaths, had been given to only 631 beneficiaries in that area.

“The AAP government was surrendering the powers of the state. The Centre had proposed an amendment in the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966 in order to add two members in the Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) from Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh. Himachal was an upstream state while Rajasthan was not even a riparian state.”

Badal said the SAD would oppose this move “tooth and nail”, as only Punjab and Haryana are part of the BBMB along with the Centre.

The SAD president also talked about how the AAP government had earlier failed to fill as many as 60 per cent posts of engineers lying vacant in the BBMB besides failing to prevent the deputation of the CISF which had effectively taken the control of the dam out of its hands.

Speaking about the suicide case of senior IPS officer and ADGP Y Puran Singh, the SAD president said a case should be registered against all police officials named in the dying declaration of the officer. “The law is very clear. A dying declaration is always considered as a true account and action is always taken on it. If the Haryana government still does not proceed in the matter as per law then it will be assumed that it wants to save its officers.”

Senior leaders present on the occasion included District president (Rural) Jagsir Kalyan, vice president Balkar Brar and Bathinda (Urban) incharge Iqbal Singh Babli Dhillon.

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