The recent assault on Sikh preacher Sant Ranjit Singh Dhadarianwale has given the Opposition parties fresh ammunition to target the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-BJP government on the law and order situation in Punjab ahead of the Assembly elections due early next year.
‘State has failed people’Both the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have accused the State government of failing to protect the people as there was “complete breakdown of law and order”.
Pointing out to the recent incident of firing at Sant Dhadarianwale’s cavalcade, in which one of his aides died, Punjab Congress Chief Capt. Amarinder Singh fired a salvo at Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his deputy Sukhbir Singh Badal by accusing them of protecting the culprits.
Police clueless: Amarinder“Over two dozen people attacked Sant Dhadarianwale’s cavalcade, firing 40 rounds, but the police are still clueless or is it that the Badals are trying to protect someone?” said Capt. Amarinder in Chandigarh.
Notably, Sant Dhadrianwale on May 17 survived an assault allegedly by men associated with the radical Sikh group, Damdami Taksal. However, his associate Bhupinder Singh Khalsa was killed after he was shot at.
Taking a jibe at Mr. Badal’s remark that Punjab is a peaceful State, Capt. Amarinder on Sunday said the Chief Minister was suffering from “selective dementia” as he had forgotten the present and was brooding over the past.
“He [Mr. Badal] seems to be blissfully unaware of whatever is happening and still believes that Punjab is peaceful and prosperous,” Capt. Amarinder said, adding that almost every day there were reports of farmers committing suicide, gangsters killing each other and youth dying of drug overdose and addiction. “And yet Mr. Badal has the audacity to describe all these happenings as ‘petty incidents,” he said.
A new low: AAPThe AAP said the law and order situation in the State had touched a new low and people were not feeling safe.
“It is shocking that recently Mata Chand Kaur of Namdhari sect in Ludhiana was killed, followed by an assault on Sant Ranjit Singh Dhadarianwale, yet the Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal, who holds the Home department, claims complete peace in the State,” said party’s State convener Sucha Singh Chhotepur.
