Lashing out at Union Minister and SAD leader Harsimrat Kaur Badal for questioning his loyalties, Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Thursday said while he was loyal to both, his state and his party, the Badal clan, including the union minister, were devoted only to themselves.

For Harsimrat and the rest of the Badals, neither Punjab and its people nor the Sikh Panth of whom they claimed to be the guardians, were important, as they were only faithful to their own personal interests, said the Chief Minister, lambasting the Akali leadership for their repeated tirades of falsehood and deceit.

Taking Harsimrat head-on over her statement, which he trashed as a pack of lies, Capt Amarinder Singh said his loyalty to Punjab was unquestionable, and he remained equally loyal to the Congress, whose government he was heading in the state. “But your (Harsimrat’s) loyalty to your party has been questioned by your own party members, while that to Punjab has been rejected by none other than the people of Punjab, whose lives you destroyed mercilessly in the 10-years of SAD-BJP misrule,” he added.

“Little does she realise that the Akalis are only making a mockery of themselves with their frustrated attempts to mislead the people, who have full faith in the incumbent Congress government in the state,” said Captain Amarinder Singh, citing the series of electoral victories of his party in Punjab, beginning with the 2017 Assembly polls.

If the Badals were seriously concerned about protecting the interests of the Sikh community, they should speak about the BJP/RSS workers actually named in the FIR of the 1984 riots, instead of fictionalising the Gandhis’ role in the violence, asserted the Chief Minister.

And instead of playing games over the Kartarpur issue, they should pressurise their ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ruling at the Centre, to release the necessary funds for the corridor development without further delay, he added.