Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) worker's rally a damp squib

The SAD workers’ rally for all the nine Assembly segments, organized here this afternoon, proved to be a damp squib with more activity witnessed among the contenders for the party ticket from the jalandhar cantonment seat on the stage than in the audience. So much so that SAD chief and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal sat through the welcome addresses with a deep frown on his brow and kept on looking at the thin attendance and writing something on a slip pad. Similarly, he had to sternly ask the leaders jostling for photo calls from the media on stage to back off. The audience, too, remained passive throughout and did not express much enthusiasm for the rhetoric from the stage but for a small number of supporters who raised slogans in favour of the Badal Junior at the fag end of the function Interestingly, leaders on the stage, too, were more intent on retaining their precarious perches on the sofas and chairs or smirking at the discomfiture of the organisers than contributing to make the event a smooth affair. There are many claimants for this seat after the sitting MLA Jagbir Brar sided with former Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal.  Later, interacting with media persons, Sukhbir reiterated that his cousin Manpreet was misleading the people on the debt issue. The debt was just Rs 3,500 crore and not Rs 71,000 crore as claimed by the latter.  He also demanded a multi-agency probe into corporate loans worth thousands of crores written off during the UPA rule to benefit a few chosen corporate houses.  Demanding an upward revision of the debt- swap scheme from Rs 50,000 to Rs 5 lakh, Sukhbir said he had met the RBI Governor and requested the latter to raise the limit so that farmers having their agriculture loan from arhtiyas could benefit from the step. Commenting on the exceptional revenue growth of Punjab, he said the state had plugged the loopholes and rationalised to achieve the highest ever 33 per cent growth to rise to the first position in the country in this context. The Deputy Chief Minister also announced that all awards announced by them for CWG, Asian and other games’ winners would be awarded to the players at the closing ceremony of Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh Games in February. Much before the function ended, the ‘paid’ participants could be seen quarrelling with the organisers demanding their money. Many claimed that they had been brought here from nearby areas in lieu of cash and other allurements. Those present on the occasion included Ajit Singh Kohar, Dr Daljit Singh Cheema, Bibi Jagir Kaur, Sarwan Singh Phillaur, Harish Rai Dhanda, Avinash Chander, Sarbjit Singh Makkar, Rajwinder Kaur, Maheshinder Singh Garewal, Baljit Singh Neelamahal, GS Channi, Paramjit Singh Raipur and Pawan Teenu.