Come October 7, and Punjab will have enough on its political platter. State’s three major political parties — the ruling Congress, principal Opposition Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the regional party Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) — are all set to hold a show of strength after a fortnight.

Besides date, the issue is also similar — series of sacrilege incidents and related firing cases that took place in the state in 2015.

Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Sunday announced that he would hold a rally in the Akali patriarch and five-time Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal’s citadel, Lambi, on October 7 to “expose him” on the issue of sacrilege, along with Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan firing incidents.

At the same time, SAD announced to hold a parallel show in the Chief Minister’s bastion, Patiala, to counter Congress’ charges on the issue, besides blowing the whistle on the “brutal murder of democracy” by the ruling regime in connivance with the state machinery during just-concluded panchayat polls.

Already, AAP’s rebel faction, comprising eight out of total 20 MLAs, had announced to hold a protest march on October 7, starting from Kotkapura to Bargari passing through the sacrilege affected villages to force the Congress-led Government to take action against those responsible for the police action firing in 2015.

Call it planned or a coincident, the political tempers set to run high on October 7 with all the major players set to target each other — setting the stage ahead crucial Lok Sabha elections, scheduled for early next year.

Political observers believed that the Congress party would not allow the sacrilege issue to die down, especially ahead the parliamentary polls, as it is giving it enough ammunition to target the SAD, besides shifting people’s attention from the issues of serious concern, including drugs, farmers’ suicides, among others.

Together with that, the Congress has also managed to hit the SAD’s core vote bank of Sikh population.

“SAD’s situation in the state has become so worse that people are holding it responsible for the disrespect of Guru Granth Sahib. People are totally against it, and the panchayat results are manifestation of the same.

Senior Badal, who has been staying away from the politics and was totally out of scene, has to come out and take charge to save the SAD’s sinking ship, which is virtually impossible,” a senior Congress leader told The Pioneer.

But, in contrast, it is also believed that the sacrilege issue has given a new lease of political life to the Akali Dal, especially after it was pushed back on the poor third spot in the state, after ruling it for a decade.

Though fingers are being pointed at the Akalis for sacrilege incidents, it has also given it an opportunity for survival in the state political scene with the party becoming all the more active, holding rallies, targeting ruling party, raising issues, and so on to defend itself.

SAD has become target of all attacks after the Congress Government tabled the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report, into the sacrilege cases and related firing incidents, in the Vidhan Sabha, putting the Badals and the former Director General of Police (DGP) Sumedh Singh Saini in dock, besides many others.

Demand for registration of cases against the Badals and Saini has been gaining momentum since then.

SAD, in its defence, has been holding rallies dubbing Justice Ranjit Singh panel as a “sarkari commission”, giving a pre-decided and concocted report against the Badals.

In response to Akalis’ one such rally at Faridkot, Capt Amarinder had announced to hold a rally at Lambi. On Sunday, he announced the date and venue for the same.

“I will address a rally at Killianwali in Lambi to take on Parkash Singh Badal over the sacrilege issue on his home turf on October 7,” he said.

“Congress party delegation, comprising Finance Minister Manpreet Badal, Power Minister Gurpreet Singh Kangar, Cooperation Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Gidderbaha MLA Raja Amarinder Singh Warring, on Sunday reviewed the Killianwali grain market site for the proposed rally,” said the party spokesperson.

Capt Amarinder’s announcement to hold rally came after taking a serious note of Badal’s “continued and willful attempts to create communal unrest in the state through his deceitful statements” on the report of Justice (Retd) Ranjit Singh commission on the widespread incidents of sacrilege that had taken place during the SAD-BJP rule, he said.

“The former Chief Minister has been trying to spread a disinformation campaign on the issue of Bargari and other sacrilege cases, as well as the incidents of police firing on innocent and peaceful protestors in Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura, since the Commission had come out with its report,” said Capt Amarinder.

SAD’s PEOPLE'S RALLY AGAINST REPRESSION IN PATIALA

SAD will hold a state-level anti repression (Jabar Virodhi) rally at Patiala on October 7 to highlight and protest against the brutal murder of democracy by “the unholy coalition between the Congress party and the state machinery who functioned like a clan of gangsters” during the just concluded Zila Parishad and Samiti elections in the state.

“The SPs, Deputy Commissioners, SDMs, and Tehsildars functioned as Congress election workers in this mockery of democracy,” said a resolution passed during the SAD’s core committee meeting on Sunday.

Apart from highlighting the repression in the panchayat poll, the rally would also focus on putting pressure on the government to solve problems being faced by the people, said party’s principal spokesperson Harcharan Bains.

 “The rally would be the first in a series of initiatives by SAD to enforce accountability on the ruling party on its refusal to honour its manifesto commitment to  completely waive the farmers and the farm labourers' debt, raise the Shagun scheme amount to Rs 51000, old age pension to Rs 2500 per month, free sugar and tea for those covered under the Atta-Dal scheme, one job each for every household in the state, free houses and five marla plots to every poor family, free mobile phones to the poor, waiving of loan up to Rs 50,000 for Dalit families and many other commitments,” said the core committee resolution.

“They (Congress) first resorted to mass cancellations of nomination papers, then cast fake votes en masse, then captured booths, and on counting day, threw our party agents out. But still unable to secure a verdict in their favour during recent polls, they finally declared defeated Congress candidates as winners, at many places even altering the verdict after the declarations,” read the resolution.