With the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) holding rallies in Punjab by claiming to expose Congress over Ranjit Singh Commission report, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Sunday said the former CM Parkash Singh Badal was making an attempt to destabilise the state by misleading the people on the sensitive issue of sacrilege cases.

In a statement, the CM said he would take on Akali veteran Badal on the latter’s home ground in Lambi to expose him over the issue.

The CM will hold a rally in Lambi, the Assembly constituency of Badal, in the last week of September, after the Zila Parishad elections in the state, a spokesperson said here on Sunday.

The spokesperson said Amarinder had taken serious note of Badal’s continued and willful attempts to create communal unrest in the state through his deceitful statements on the report of Justice (Retd) Ranjit Singh on the widespread incidents of sacrilege that had taken place during the SAD-BJP rule.

The CM said that Badal had a habit of raising communal passions by spreading a web of lies and misusing religion every time around the elections, and vowed to expose the Akali leader’s real face to the people of Punjab.

The former CM had been trying to spread a disinformation campaign on the issue of Bargarhi and other sacrilege cases, as well as the incidents of police firing on innocent and peaceful protestors in Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura, since the Commission had come out with its report, said Amarinder.

Badal, who had been under fire ever since the report was tabled in the state Assembly, was clearly desperate to divert public attention from his own role in these cases, said the CM, lambasting the former SAD chief for exploiting the religious sentiments of the people to protect his interests.

Badal has always misused religion to further his political ambitions and agenda, said Amarinder, pointing to the incidents of communal strife that had rocked the state ahead of every election, including the 2017 Assembly polls. Fortunately, however, the people of Punjab had seen through his attempts to destabilise the state and had voted him and his party decisively out of power, he added.

With the Parliamentary elections now around the corner, Badal was once again try to whip up communal passions in a desperate bid to retrieve the lost political ground for his SAD, Amarinder said.