SAD leader Sukhbir Badal is on a mission to persuade dissidents

AMRITSAR: Sukhbir Singh Badal, the president of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), took it upon himself to address concerns of potential defections among party leaders.


He met with dissatisfied party leader Talbir Gill, who is in-charge of the party's Amritsar South assembly constituency, and successfully convinced Gill to remain loyal to the party.

According to sources within the SAD, Sukhbir had a private conversation with Talbir, and afterward, Gill was seen sitting behind Sukhbir and other SAD leaders with a smile during Sukhbir's press conference on Friday.

Earlier, another party leader, Bikram Singh Majithia, also met with Talbir to persuade him to reconsider his stance. Talbir had previously expressed discontent with the party's functioning and had announced his decision not to work for the party. He had also raised concerns about certain decisions made by Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee President Harjit Singh Dhami.

During an interaction with the media, Sukhbir criticized the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government on various fronts.

Sukhbir accused the AAP of defrauding the people of Punjab by allegedly diverting 750 crore rupees from the state treasury to please the de facto Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal. He also mentioned an incident where the family of a suicide victim, Dr. Balwinder Kaur, an unemployed Assistant Professor from Ropar, was promised a government job through an unofficial letter for the teacher's five-year-old daughter when she comes of age, thirteen years later.

Sukhbir further alleged that the Education Minister, Harjot Bains, who was mentioned in Dr. Balwinder's suicide note, had not been named in the First Information Report (FIR). He contrasted this with the swift action taken by the AAP government to arrest SAD general secretary Parambans Singh Romana for allegedly uploading a doctored video.

Sukhbir also criticized the media, accusing them of being influenced by the AAP and warned that, if the SAD forms the government, they would investigate and hold accountable all the officials who had depleted the government treasury on Bhagwant Mann's orders.

Describing AAP as a party of "plunderers," Sukhbir claimed that the government was now allocating eight lakh rupees per post to social media influencers who propagate propaganda in the party's favor, which he saw as clear-cut corruption.