The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) hit out at senior leader Balwant Singh Ramoowalia, who took oath as a Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Minister today, for displaying the "height of political opportunism" by "betraying" the party.
The top Akali leaders said that the action of Ramoowalia was reminiscent of the days of "aaya ram gayaa ram" politics.
In a setback to SAD, Ramoowalia quit the party and took oath as a Cabinet Minister in Samajwadi Party government in Uttar Pradesh today.
Senior SAD leaders including Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, Balwinder Singh Bhundur, Maheshinder Singh Grewal, Prem Singh Chandumajra and Daljit Singh Cheema said what was most condemnable was that Ramoowalia had not betrayed the SAD due to any ideological reasons "but because he had been rejected by the people of Punjab".
In a joint statement, the leaders said Ramoowalia was "always in the habit of sticking to power and back stabbing".
They said it was the SAD that had granted Ramoowalia political recognition by giving him the parliamentary ticket from Faridkot several years back.
The leaders claimed that Ramoowalia when out in the cold formed his own party-Lok Bhalai Party (LBP) "which was more in news for exploiting NRIs and innocent Punjabis".
LBP failed to make any impression in two successive elections following which Ramoowalia made a comeback to the SAD (in 2011), they said.
Ramoowalia lost during the 2012 assembly elections from Punjab when he contested from Mohali as a SAD candidate.
Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa and Balwinder Bhundur said after the people of Mohali rejected him, there was a clamour from the SAD's rank and file to divest him from the responsibility of leading the party from the constituency in the next assembly elections (due in 2017).
They claimed Ramoowalia got "frustrated" due to these developments.
"We fail to understand what lollipop the Samajwadi Party has given to such a failed leader", the SAD leaders sneered.
74-year-old Ramoowalia was today sworn in along with 19 other ministers by UP Governor Ram Naik at a function held at Raj Bhawan in Lucknow following a revamp of Akhilesh Yadav's ministry.
