Harsimrat’s resignation shook up Modi, our Oct 1 march will shake Delhi’s throne: Sukhbir Badal

NEW DELHI: In a sign of growing bitterness between old allies Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the BJP, SAD president Sukhbir Badal said on Friday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi “was shaken up by the bomb of Harsimrat Badal’s resignation” and that the PM was hence now speaking on the farm bills daily. Badal also said that a protest march being organised by him in Punjab on October 1 “will shake up the throne of Delhi”.

At a protest venue in Lambi village in Muktsar, to which Sukhbir drove on a tractor along with his wife Harsimrat, the SAD president said he had been telling the central government to speak on the bills for the past two months but they did not. “In World War II, Japan was in a strong position but the US threw a nuclear bomb and shook up Japan. We also threw one bomb in the form of Harsimrat’s resignation and we have shaken up Modi,” said Badal. “Now, he (the PM) speaks daily on it. So do five ministers. Big advertisements are brought out. This should have been done earlier.”

He said a major protest march being organised by him on October 1 will shake up the throne in Delhi as well the one in Chandigarh, in a reference to the Modi government and the Captain Amarinder Singh-led Punjab government. Badal also said that people who have brought the bills do not know much about agriculture and hence have framed wrong laws. “I am a farmer and my generations have been into farming. But we were not asked. In Parliament during the debate on the bills, my mike was switched off or I would have said that I am throwing the resignation towards them (BJP government),” he said.

A day earlier, in Talwandi Sabo, Badal had said that no alliance was necessary for his party.

Chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh lashed out at the Akalis for “their public posturing on the bills, which even the farmers had dismissed as crocodile tears”. He questioned Badal’s persistent refusal to pull his party out of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance and said the “farmers of Punjab won’t let Akalis succeed in their despicable and greedy attempt to have their cake and eat it too”.