The statement by Punjab Advocate General A P S Deol accusing PCC Chief Navjot Singh Sidhu of “obstructing the functioning of the government” seems to have put Punjab Congress on course for yet another round of power tussle with Sidhu supporters in the government taking pot-shots at the AG. Senior minister and Sidhu’s closest aide Pargat Singh, while addressing mediapersons in Jalandhar, said that it was wrong on the part of Deol to have made such a statement against the party president.
On continued spat between Sidhu and Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, Pargat tried to downplay the differences. “Issues will be sorted out soon,” he said. Meanwhile, even Channi in an apparent reaction to Sidhu targeting his government over the issues of sacrilege and drug trafficking said on Saturday, “I may be poor but not weak” and asserted the matters will be resolved.
Addressing a gathering in Chamkaur Sahib, Channi said action would be taken against all those responsible for the 2015 sacrilege incidents as investigations into them by a Punjab Police special investigation team (SIT) are on the fast and right track. “I may be poor, I may belong to a poor family but I am not weak…. All issues will be resolved,” said Channi, who replaced Amarinder Singh as the Punjab chief minister.
Sidhu in a press conference on Friday had questioned the Channi-led state government over the steps taken for the delivery of justice in the cases of desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib and drug trafficking.
Sources in the party said that the Sidhu camp believes that the statement issued by Deol was done at the behest of the chief minister. “Very difficult to accept that he may have issued the statement on his own. This is an attempt to fire at Sidhu through the shoulders of the AG,” commented a leader in Sidhu camp.
The government on its part has so far chosen to stay silent on the statement issued by Deol against Sidhu.
Channi meanwhile continued to defend his stand on the sacrilege issue. “It (sacrilege) is an issue of my Guru and an issue of Punjab’s soul.”
On the drugs issue, Channi said that all those guilty of pushing the state’s youth into drugs would not be spared at any cost. He said that after the release of a report on the drug mafia, all the big sharks involved in it would be exposed.
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