The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday alleged Navjot Singh Sidhu has changed his stand on mafia rule in the state after getting the post of the Punjab Congress chief.
AAP’s senior leader and Leader of Opposition (LoP) Harpal Singh Cheema said Sidhu, being chameleon-like, was colluding with Congress ministers and legislators who are accused by the people of Punjab of running a mafia rule.
Addressing a Press conference, Cheema said Sidhu had a dual character and double standard as he first talked about eradicating the sand, liquor, transport, land and other mafias, but was now meeting the Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) and ministers, who run the same mafia rule and was sharing stages with them.
He said it seemed that the mafia had restrained Sidhu because the share which was earlier given to Captain Amarinder Singh by the mafia, who looted Punjab, has now been taken over by Sidhu.
The AAP leader alleged the mafia rule which was run by the Badals in Punjab is being continued by the Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh and now Sidhu has also joined hands with the MLAs and ministers, who are kingpins of illegal liquor, sand and land mafia.
Cheema said the governments that had ruled Punjab since 1992 had created a mafia state and had plunged Punjab into a debt of Rs Three lakh crore. He said at the time of deaths due to illicit liquor in Majha region, Sidhu used to talk of providing justice to the victims but today he himself has colluded with the same liquor mafia.
Cheema said by being close to the liquor mafia, Sidhu had broken the hearts of the victims of the illicit liquor scandal. He said with formation of the AAP government in Punjab, legal action would be taken against the ministers, MLAs and others involved in liquor, land, sand, transport and cable mafia and the complete record of those who ruined Punjab would be made public.
He said the people of Punjab had now understood that all these mafias were being run by the Akali and the Congress in collusion and only their faces were changing, while their activities remained the same. Cheema said Sidhu was a part of the mafia like other Akalis and Congressmen, whereas earlier he was walking around in disguise of being truthful.