Punjab News Badal begins campaign on emotive note

Lily

B.R
Staff member
Badal December 31:

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal formally started his election campaign in the Lambi constituency this morning. He is pitted against his younger brother Gurdas Singh Badal of the PPP. Addressing a gathering at his palatial house in Badal village, an emotional Badal said he was an unlucky man having been separated from his younger brother and then losing his wife Surinder Kaur.

“Heartbroken, I was unwilling to contest the elections, but the party’s order is supreme. I assure you to carry out overall development of the area,” the CM said, adding that Akali activists would have to canvass for him in the constituency as being the chief ministerial candidate, he would have to campaign in other constituencies. Counting the achievements of the SAD-BJP government in the past five years, he told the gathering: “See the development in Punjab today. No party is now able to ask us any question on the issue.”

Bitterly criticising the Congress, he said: “We have announced more than 50 per cent of our candidates, but the Congress is yet to announce a single candidate for the coming poll.” “Pradesh Congress chief Amarinder Singh is busy getting his ‘achkans’ stitched and CLP Leader Rajinder Kaur Bhattal purchasing silk suits. They have no other agenda except to have fun. But, I have worked like a daily-wager for the development of the state,” claimed Badal.

He refrained from uttering a single word against his estranged nephew PPP chief Manpreet Singh Badal and his father. Badal appealed to the Akali workers to strictly follow the directions of the Election Commission of India (ECI). Before starting his campaign, Badal paid obeisance at the village gurdwara, temple and mosque. Canvassing in Lambi, Gurdas Singh Badal, popularly known as Dass, while addressing a gathering, uses no offensive term for his elder brother. “I have no grudge against Badal Sahab (Parkash Singh). His son Sukhbir no longer listens to him.”

Gurdas appeals to the masses to vote for him, saying, “we brothers had a lot of love for each other but Sukhbir’s impatience to become Chief Minister changed everything. Sukhbir is the de facto CM ever busy implicating our (PPP) workers in fake criminal cases.” On the outcome of the elections, he says: “If I win, I have no cheer and if I lose, I have no gloom.”

 
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