Badal, Son Should Quit: Sarna

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SAD-BJP rout in Delhi

Badal, son should quit: Sarna

Sarbjit Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, December 9

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his son and SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal should quit leadership of Sikhs following defeat of the SAD- BJP alliance in the Delhi Vidhan Sabha elections, said Paramjit Singh Sarna, president of the Delhi Akali Dal.

Talking to The Tribune today on the defeat of all four SAD candidates in the Delhi Vidhan Sabha elections, Sarna said Sikhs this time overwhelmingly voted for the Congress and worked to defeat the SAD-BJP combine in the Delhi elections. He said Sikhs, by and large, in Delhi did not trust the BJP and considered it as an anti-Sikh party. So they voted against the SAD-BJP alliance in Delhi, he said.

Most of the Sikhs were allergic to the SAD’s alliance with the BJP, he added. All Sikh candidates, who contested against the candidates of the SAD-BJP combine in Delhi, won with a huge margin of votes, he said. The SAD leaders from Punjab had come to Delhi with 10,000 supporters and bags full of money, but they failed to make any impact on the Delhi elections, he added.

“We supported the Congress because its leadership had promised to meet our five demands before the beginning of the Assembly elections in Delhi,” asserted Sarna. Among these five demands were removing of the black list of Sikhs, converting of the death sentence of Prof Devinderpal Singh to life sentence, enacting of the Anand Marriage Act, Indian citizenship for Sikhs and Hindus ousted from Afghanistan and now settled in Delhi and restoration of the land belonging to Majnu-ka-Tilla gurdwara.

“Unlike the SAD, my party did not ask for any seat from the Congress, but pressed for accepting our demands,” said Sarna. “As the Congress has come to power in Delhi, I will not press it to fulfill the promise made with the Delhi Akali Dal,” said Sarna, adding; “I am certain the SAD-BJP combine would lose the Lok Sabha elections in the same way it lost in the Delhi Vidhan Sabha,” he said. “We will camp in Punjab to defeat the SAD-BJP combine.”