The Congress candidate from SAS Nagar Balbir Singh Sidhu today said Balwant Singh Rammowalia, an outsider, had been foisted as a candidate on the unwilling people of this constituency ostensibly by taking them for granted that they would meekly submit to the dictates of the SAD-BJP combine. By fielding of Ramoowalia as its nominee, the SAD had conceded that it did not find any of party leaders from the area fit for contesting against the Congress candidate whom they view as a potential winner, he said.
Sidhu, in a statement released here today, said that it also amounted to the Badals treating the local Akali leaders as ‘unworthy and incompetent’. How could a party which did not give weightage to its local leaders could value the aspirations of the local people and how could it attend to their day-to-day needs, he questioned. “In a participatory democratic set up of ours, the involvement of the local people in the governance is ensured through their local representatives they send to the assembly. But how a rank opportunist and a paratrooper like Ramoowalia could give representation to people of the area? Instead, he, being a proxy candidate for a deserving local one, will hijack the political space meant for you and also your share in the ‘state governance”, he said.
Sidhu further said that Ramoowalia’s only aim was political rehabilitation and step into the the ‘corridors of power’ by riding on shoulders of people of Mohali. He reminded the people that Ramoowalia, known for mastering the political art of ‘use and discard’, never visited the people of Faridkot who elected him to Lok Sabha. Similarly he treated the people of Sangrur shabbily who voted him to power. Sidhu said that all his oratory, jugglery of words and glib talks were nothing but aimed at befooling the people and robbing the locals of their right to choose a legislator who is ‘one-among-them’.
Describing Ramoowalia a political turn-coat, Sidhu said that he had junked the SAD to become the member of National Commission for Minorities with the Congress support. And again, he cultivated CPI-M leader Harkishan Singh Surjeet to become a minister in the Central Government. He alleged that “a disgruntled Ramoowalia finding his Lok Bhalai Party not taking off, fell at the feet of the Badals for his rehabilitation in politics despite the fact he had been abusing and accusing the Akalis of ‘political fraud’ for years together. And, now a political hopper that he is, Ramoowalia is out to play a political thuggy on the people on Mohali.”
Sidhu reiterated that at the same time, the people of Mohali should not forget that they suffered discrimination at the hands of the SAD-BJP government in development and allocation of funds for the area because they had sent a Congress MLA in last election. Besides, the local people also sent a majority of Congress councilors to the civic body. Sidhu said that the people should vote for the Congress for accelerated development of this region and out to an end the ‘vendetta politics’ of SAD-BJP combine.