In a veiled attack on Navjot Singh Sidhu who has quit as Rajya Sabha MP, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today said people of the state will never forgive "opportunist and treacherous political" leaders who ditch their mother party for the sake of short-term benefits.
He claimed that leaders without any principles could never succeed in politics as Punjabis have a strong dislike for them.
"One should be loyal to one's party and its policies and the person who does not stand by his party was bound to go into oblivion," Badal said.
He said there would be hardly any impact of Sidhu leaving the BJP.
He said that he has not yet received the resignation of Chief Parliamentary Secretary Navjot Kaur Sidhu.
Replying to another query, Badal said there will be "no competitor" for the ruling SAD-BJP alliance in the 2017 Assembly elections.
He exuded confidence that owing to its pro-people and growth oriented policies the alliance would score a spectacular win in the coming assembly polls.
To another query, the chief minister said that only the Union government was authorised to waive the loans of farmers towards the banks, adding that the state government has hardly any role in it.
Badal said he had been regularly pleading for making all-out efforts to make agriculture a profitable venture.
He said that all the powers regarding fixing the prices of crop and agriculture inputs were vested with the union government.
Badal said that on its part the state government was providing free power worth Rs 5000 crore annually to the farmers besides ensuring Health insurance and an interest free crop loan worth Rs 50,000 to them.
Criticising the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Congress for defaming the state, he said that both these anti-Punjab forces were "tarnishing" the image of state by branding the hard working and resilient Punjabis as "drug addicts".
"Earlier the Congress levelled the Punjabis as terrorists and now both these parties were branding them as drug addicts," Badal alleged.
