THE RELEASE of radical leader Amritpal Singh’s associate Lovepreet Singh 'Tufan', after his supporters clashed with the police in Ajnala near Amritsar on Thursday, is not the first time the first-time Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government of Punjab has buckled under pressure. Lovepreet had been arrested on charges that included kidnapping. Amritpal was also an accused in the same case, along with 25 others. The case was registered on the complaint of one Varinder Singh, who alleged he was kidnapped and beaten after he uploaded a video accusing Amritpal and his followers of spreading false propaganda. Last year, the Bhagwant Mann government had backed down on one of its first orders after taking over, which was to ban jugaad rehris – the term used for carts fashioned out of old and condemned motorbikes, to transport goods. Officers had sought their ban saying they could cause accidents. But the move led to protests, with Opposition parties accusing the government of being “anti-poor”. The charge hit too close to home for the AAP, which has built itself as the party of the common man. No sooner had the issue gathered heat than Chief Minister Mann intervened and asked traffic police to withdraw the order. Later, he called a meeting of the officials and pulled them up. Another order, by the Local Bodies Department, to remove encroachments from roadsides including rehris was also withdrawn. Another issue that saw the government beat a hasty retreat was the arrest warrants issued to farmers who owed debts to cooperative banks. As protests resulted, Finance Minister Harpal Cheema was directed to record and send out a video message that no farmer would be arrested. Cheema sought to blame the previous Congress government, saying the process to issue arrest warrants was initiated by former Cooperatives Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa. The latter denied the same. Cheema told The Indian Express that the AAP government has in the past 10 months extended a package of Rs 798 crore to Punjab State Agriculture Development Bank to bail it out of the crisis of unpaid loans. The AAP government later directed administrative secretaries of all departments to bring to the notice of the Chief Minister any decisions that were likely to have an adverse impact on the general public, especially the weaker sections of society, prior to issuance of any notification. The CMO asked that the message be conveyed to all officers working in various capacities. In the latest instance, the government buckled to the demand for release of Lovepreet by Amritpal, even after his supporters stormed a police station and left six police personnel, including an officer, injured. It was not the first case of such a clash either. On February 9, protesters seeking the release of Sikh political prisoners attacked the Chandigarh and Punjab Police, leaving 34 police personnel injured. Former AAP leader and MLA Kanwar Sandhu said the Mann government's response was unfortunate. “What governments of the day require is to take a decision or an action after weighing all the options. In this case, the government registered a case against Tufan and arrested him, only to release him later. Such acts only build the persona of such people. This is what exactly used to happen during the times of militancy. The governments buckled under pressure, and the result was in front of all of us.”
