Khadoor Sahib, September 10
The political conference by the Congress here today to mark “Gurta Gadi Divas” of the second Sikh Guru Angad Dev turned out to be a damp squib as none from the state leadership, except local MLA Ramanjit Singh Sikki, showed up there.

Even the three other MLAs from the district — Dr Dhramvir Agnihotri, Harminder Singh Gill and Sukhpal Bhullar — were absent. Sikki’s political guru, Rana Gurjit Singh, who had been attending the annual conference for years, was also conspicuous by his absence.

Sikki had recently been made halqa in charge of the Bholath constituency represented by AAP’s Sukhpal Khaira. Addressing the gathering, Sikki said his responsibility in Bholath would not have any impact on development of the Khadoor Sahib constituency.

The SAD and AAP conferences, on the other hand, witnessed participation by their senior state leadership who minced no words in criticising the government.

Former Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal, along with former minister Bikram Singh Majithia, and former MLAs and SGPC members lambasted the government for its alleged faulty policies.

Sukhbir said the people had lost faith in the government. He accused the government of stopping all social service schemes initiated by them for the poor. He said the faulty financial policies of the government had gone so bad that it was now finding it difficult to pay salaries.

On AAP stage, state president Bhagwant Mann and Leader of the Opposition in Assembly Sukhpal Khaira dubbed Capt Amarinder Singh as a “irresponsible” Chief Minister. He questioned the CM for his alleged failure to keep his pre-poll promises of ending drug menace in a month and rampant farm suicides. The AAP leaders said drugs were still a big issue as nothing had been done to stop their supply.

The SAD (Amritsar) led by Simranjit Singh Mann and the CPI also organised conferences. Simranjit Singh criticised the government on the issue of farm loan waiver.