Punjab Revenue minister Bikram Singh Majithia today said former Congress legislator Sukhpal Khaira seemed to have lost his mental balance after seven successive losses at the hustings which alone could explain the latter’s desperation in releasing fudged records which existed only in Khaira’s twisted mind.In a statement here, Mr Majithia said as far as the allegations were concerned, “I cannot give any answer to the false and malicious smear campaign launched by Khaira against me. I however understand his motives. He is a desperate attention seeker. He loves to time his so called sensational releases in conjunction with important events, including the Vidhan Sabha session. The releases are however forgotten after a few days once Mr Khaira has basked in the nefarious glow of his cheap publicity. I would only request the learned journalists to reaffirm the authenticity of the allegations and then only publish the same as they are defamatory in nature and seek to malign my reputation”.
The Revenue minister also questioned why the former mla had come out with the allegations in 2014 when the cooked up case was allegedly of 2011 vintage. “Mr Khaira’s party ruled the centre just two months back. Why didn’t he approach the government or the central agencies? He did not do so because he knew he was releasing cooked up data to get cheap publicity during an assembly session and that this data would not stand the scrutiny of law”.Claiming that it was the people who had rejected Khaira seven times including three times in assembly elections and four times from his assembly constituency in the parliamentary polls, Mr Majithia said it was unfortunate that the Punjab Congress had appointed such a person as its front man to lead a defamation campaign against him. “This speaks about the bankruptcy of ideas and ideals in the Punjab Congress which has officially adopted an agenda to defame me at any given instance”, he added.