Chandigarh – Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal today called for taking corrective steps to stop radicalisation amongst youth, saying the border State of Punjab was being thrown into turmoil with communal clashes taking place in the State for the first time ever even as acts of terror and high-profile killings had made its people insecure.
Speaking at the All-Party meeting in parliament, Harsimrat Badal said it was a cause of concern that besides communal clashes, which had not occurred in the State even during the period of militancy or the 1984 genocide of Sikhs in Delhi, terror attacks like the targeting of the State Intelligence headquarter in Mohali with a rocket launcher and the killing of renowned singer Sidhu Moosewala with AK-74s were occurring in Punjab.
Harsimrat said alongside this, Punjabis were feeling alienated due to steps like assurance given to Haryana by the central government that it would be allotted land in Chandigarh for a separate Vidhan Sabha. Asserting that Punjabis considered Chandigarh to be their capital and had been assured successively that it would be made their capital, the Bathinda MP said such steps like earmarking land to Haryana was leading to discontentment. She also castigated the Punjab government for failing the protect Punjab’s right over Chandigarh by meekly surrendering the claim. She said besides this recent steps like the banning of the SYL song of Sidhu Moosewala and Rihai song of Kanwar Grewal had increased this feeling of alienation. “Both songs call for protecting the State’s River waters and release of Sikh detenues respectively and reflect the sentiments of Punjabis. “Banning such songs is counter productive and the ban should be revoked”.
The Bathinda MP also listed other steps which were alienating Punjabis including the proposal to convert Panjab University into a central University as well as creation of the UT cadre in Chandigarh, implementation of central pay scales and dilution of the status of Punjabi language.
Asserting that the atmosphere was being vitiated in Punjab with irresponsible utterances, Badal said a case in point was the claim by newly elected Sangrur MP Simranjit Singh Mann that Shaheed Bhagat Singh was a terrorist. She also gave the instance of the desecration of a statue of Mahatama Gandhi in Bathinda in this regard.
While talking about the Kisan Andolan and the promise made to farmers that minimum support price (msp) for all food crops would be guaranteed by law had not been fulfilled till yet. She said the SAD wanted to raise all these issues in parliament but being a small party, it was not sure if it would get the required time and advocated that sufficient time should be given to small parties who constituted 30 percent of the strength of parliament to raise their issues.
