Shiromani Akali Dal President Sukhbir Singh Badal on Sunday said that his party will contest all 10 Lok Sabha seats and 90 Assembly seats alone in Haryana. Both the general and the state Assembly election are due next year.
“Despite having a big strength, the Sikhs haven’t got their share in Haryana politics, because they are not united and politicians took advantage of their disunity,” Badal said at a rally at Pipli Grain Market in Kurukshetra, the Hindustan Times reported. “The same has happened with the Muslims.”
“No one can stop you from acquiring power in Haryana if you get united under the flag of the Shiromani Akali Dal,” Badal claimed. He added that incidents such as the attack on a Sikh family in Hisar can only be stopped by winning power in the state.
Badal attacked the Congress, claiming it was an “anti-Sikh” party. “The Congress and the Gandhi family had always targeted the Sikhs,” he alleged. “Incidents like 1984 anti-Sikh riots and Operation Bluestar are enough to prove that Congress is the anti-Sikh party.”
While he did not criticise the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is the Shiromani Akali Dal’s ally in Punjab, Badal claimed that the infrastructure in Haryana is inferior to that in Punjab.
Meanwhile, a group of protestors claiming to be Shiromani Akali Dal members waved black flags at Badal and chanted slogans. But the party denied the protestors were its members, and alleged that they “could not digest the Akali Dal strength in Haryana”.
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