BJP treats turncoats like disposable pawns: AAP finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema

Chandigarh: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Thursday said the BJP had turned politics into a marketplace where loyalty, ideology and public mandate were traded for power, using opposition leaders as disposable pawns to advance its political interests. It came on a day the BJP announced its national general secretary among the candidates for Rajya Sabha.Referring to Sunil Jakhar and Ravneet Singh Bittu, who had in the past quit the Congress for BJP, as examples of the party's "use and throw" culture, Punjab finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema said the saffron party lured opposition faces to manufacture an illusion of political growth in Punjab, only to marginalise them once their usefulness expired. Cheema asserted that Punjab's electorate could see through the BJP's desperate attempts to "buy a foothold" in the state and would not be misled by the party's efforts to hide its anti-Punjab agenda behind imported faces from other parties. "Recent political shifts reveal the BJP's complete disregard for the Punjab leaders it inherits, using them strictly for short-term gains before tossing them aside," Cheema added.He said BJP had reduced politics to a "marketplace of opportunism". "BJP has absolutely no respect for ideology, loyalty or the mandate of the people. They systematically target opposition leaders, lure them to switch sides to create a false narrative of growth in Punjab, and once their immediate utility is over, they ruthlessly marginalise them," Cheema said.