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Sukbir effect: Akali councillors
boycott Badal's show
WSN Network
Jalandhar: Here
was a hilarious situation in many ways. Akali councillors boycotted
a function where CM Prakash Singh Badal was the chief guest
because, apaprently, the photograph of Sukhbir Singh Badal was
missing from the advertisement of the function released by a BJP
minister!
On top of that,
as media carried out stories about how the BJP minister and the
Jalandhar MC were violating the high court orders restricting use of
politicians' pictures in official advertisements, Akali councillors'
demand was that the picture of 'their' leader, dear Sukhbir, be alos
included!
Irrespective of
the boycott, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal formally re-launched
the Jalandhar City Bus Service by travelling in a Blue Line Bus from
BMC to Namdev Chowk in Jalandhar on Sunday.
Again, it was a
pathetic site. In a state often tom tommed as the front runner
Indian state, it was a pity to tell the world that we do not even
have a regular intra-city bus service after all these years. And the
CM thinks it such a big achievement that he landed by a chopper and
traveled in the bus to inaugurate it.
Some years ago,
the then Railway Minister Ram Vilas Paswan actually traveled up and
down an elevator to inaugurate it at the
Delhi railway
station.
Meanwhile, three
Jalandhar MLAs and over 15 Akali councillors boycotted the Chief
Minister’s function to lodge their protest against the alleged
deliberate omission of SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal’s picture
from advertisements for the city bus service launch.
Pictures of BJP
national general secretary Balbir Punj and Punjab BJP chief Rajinder
Bhandari had been incorporated in the advertisements released by the
Jalandhar Municipal Corporation, Sukhbir Badal was missing in the
frames. Before the function, three Akali MLAs — Sarabjeet Singh
Makkar, Jagbir Singh Brar and Chief Parliamentary Secretary Avinash
Chander — and BJP MLA K.D. Bhandari, accompanied by around 20
councillors, including Senior Deputy Mayor Kamaljit Singh Bhatia,
met Badal at the PAP Headquarters to vent their ire against Kalia.
BJP MLA Bhandari, known to be a Sukhbir loyalist, has not been on
good terms with Kalia.
The MLAs and
councillors openly expressed their resentment against Sukhbir being
ignored in the full-page advertisements. “This is an attempt to
undermine our leadership, which is not acceptable.
How can we
participate in a function where the SAD president is not given due
respect?” the protesting Akalis told Badal.
The Chief
Minister, however, tried to pacify them by saying “the SAD-BJP is a
united front, and we should all participate.
20 August, 2008
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