The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) legislature parties on Friday urged Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit to save democracy by ordering a probe into allegations of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) that its legislators were offered bribes of hundreds of crores of rupees to topple the state government.

A delegation led by SAD legislature party leader Manpreet Singh Ayali and Nachhatar Pal from the BSP also urged the Governor to hold AAP accountable for squandering public funds on a PR exercise aimed at furthering its party agenda at the cost of Punjabis, besides advising the government to hold discussions on the real issues of Punjabis in the ongoing special session of the Assembly.

Speaking to reporters, Ayali said that the AAP government was bent on violating Parliamentary norms and abusing the mandate of Punjabis to further its political agenda. He said Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema submitted a complaint to the state police chief claiming that its legislators were offered bribes of Rs 10 crore each to switch sides.

“Even though the complaint was submitted on September 14, no one has been named in the case and no arrests have been made even after fifteen days,” the SAD leader said, adding that this reflected the incompetence of the state police.

Ayali said the SAD-BSP delegation had urged the Governor to order a Central probe by the CBI or the ED into the allegations or direct the government to initiate a judicial probe into the case by a sitting judge of the High Court or the Supreme Court.

“This is also necessary as the mobile phones of the concerned legislators need to be seized and subjected to forensic examination,” he added.

The SAD legislators also urged the Punjab Governor to hold AAP accountable for politicizing the agenda of the Assembly deliberately with the aim of seeking political mileage in the upcoming assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

They said that the entire cost of the session at the rate of Rs one crore per day should be billed to the AAP. They also detailed how the confidence motion, for which there was no provision in the rules of procedure of the Assembly, had been introduced without taking the approval of the Business Advisory Committee of the House.