Akali Dal wants Manpreet Badal to quit assembly seat

CHANDIGARH - Upset with the good response being drawn by expelled leader and former finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal, the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab Tuesday asked him to resign from his assembly seat and test his popularity.

“If Manpreet has some moral values, he should immediately resign as MLA (legislator) that was gifted to him by the Shiromani Akali Dal,” Akali Dal general secretary Mahesh Inder Singh Grewal said.

Manpreet was “posing himself as a votary of moral values and acting according to the conscience” and he had no right to represent a seat from where he won on Akali Dal ticket, he added.

Grewal said: “If he is so confident of his political acumen and fiscal policies, he should resign and fight elections to see that how voters of Gidderbaha reject him. He is running away from a by-election.”

Manpreet, sacked from the government headed by his uncle Parkash Singh Badal and later expelled from the Akali Dal for anti-party activities, was elected in March 2007 from Gidderbaha in south-west Punjab.

Manpreet came into conflict with the Akali Dal policies on giving subsidies to farmers and other categories of people and also differed with the party leadership over a Rs.350 billion (Rs.35,000 crore) debt waiver offered by the central government. He is now an unattached legislator in the assembly.

With assembly polls scheduled only in February-March 2012, Manpreet has not given any indication of resigning his assembly seat after his ouster from the government and the party.