Chandigarh, July 23 (IANS) Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) President Sukhbir Badal on Thursday condemned Delhi Lt Governor Taranjit Singh Sandhu’s decision to impose preventive detention under the National Security Act (NSA) for three months in the national capital.
Talking to the media while inspecting the Dhussi bandh in the Sultanpur Lodhi constituency, Badal said, “This is no way to deal with a peaceful movement. Protesting students are our children and not terrorists. I appeal to the Lt Governor to withdraw this order immediately. Imposing the NSA is not the answer to the student protest. Showing empathy is. Let us win their hearts with love and shun confrontation.”
Asserting that the Centre should work to make systematic improvements in national testing organisations, Badal said students were anguished that national‑level tests were rigged against them and that unscrupulous persons were selected at the cost of meritorious students. He warned that suppressing this sentiment by imposing NSA would result in long imprisonments and destroy the careers of students.
Interacting with farmers, he said he was shocked that despite large‑scale destruction due to floods last year, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government had not undertaken flood protection works. “Concrete has not been poured at weak spots in the embankments. The roads in the constituencies are in poor shape,” he said.
Farmers told the SAD President that even as no flood protection works had been undertaken this year, the AAP government had not paid them compensation for losses they faced in last year’s floods. He assured farmers that the party would assist them in conducting flood protection works and would also provide diesel and wire gabions wherever needed.
Badal came down heavily on Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann for brutalising women safai sewaks in Barnala. He said the shameful treatment meted out to women safai sewaks proved that CM Mann was not only running a police state but also presiding over a “goonda raj.”
He said earlier the government had brutalised farmers, teachers and contractual employees of various departments. He also asserted that the Chief Minister was operating Arvind Kejriwal’s “conspiracy” to recruit outsiders in government jobs in Punjab.
Badal alleged that the state had witnessed paper leaks and recruitment scams one after the other, with the latest being the pharmacy officer scam.
“Despite large‑scale irregularities in recruitments for Excise Inspectors and Naib Tehsildars also, no one has been held accountable. The government is not stopping at this alone, with Manish Sisodia claiming in the ongoing student protest that there had not been a single paper leak in Punjab under AAP watch,” he added.
–IANS
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