People’s future bleak under SAD govt: Rahul

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who embarked on a two-day visit to Punjab on Thursday, met the families of the two men killed in police firing during a protest against a sacrilege incident in the district last month.

Gandhi, who arrived by a train early in the morning, spent around 30 minutes with the family of Gurjit Singh, a mechanic killed during the protests, Congress leader Kulwant Rai Singla said. He shared his grief with Gurjit’s family and sought details about the incident. 

Later, Gandhi walked 7 km to reach the house of another deceased, Krishan Singh, at nearby Niamiwala village. 

The two were killed when the police opened fire at protesters, staging a demonstration, against sacrilege at Bargari village on October 14. The police’s act was widely condemned, forcing the state government to set up an SIT to probe the incident. 

After his meeting with the deceased men’s families, Gandhi hit out at the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), saying that everyone’s future in Punjab is “bleak” under their rule. “I can’t see anyone’s future here (Punjab). Punjab is in crisis...Farmers have problems here...drugs is a big problem,” he said.

He said: “Right now no one, but the Akalis are prospering in Punjab. Only they (Akalis especially Badals) seem to have a future. We want that everybody in Punjab is prosperous in the future.”

“Earlier, when I had said that there is a problem of drugs in Punjab, then people had made fun of me”, he recalled.

Eying the 2017 Assembly elections and the growing factionalism in the state unit, Gandhi said: “The Congress in Punjab will collectively fight for the future of Punjab, its farmers, Dalits and labourers and change the present government”. He told the local party leaders: “We have to be together. The Punjab Congress will fight the 2017 Assembly polls as one unit.” 

“The Congress will change the present SAD-BJP government by giving a united fight. All senior leaders of the party in Punjab have given me an assurance that they will remain united for the better future of the state,” he said, pointing towards various state leaders accompanying him, including state unit chief Partap Singh Bajwa and former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.

This is the first time since Gandhi’s post-Lok Sabha visit to Chandigarh last year in October that both Amarinder and Bajwa have put up a united face. The leader is likely to meet farmers in Bathinda district, besides families of the 1984 riot victims.