Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Wednesday challenged Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to place on record the so-called “five pensions” which he alleged had been availed by former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal in the public domain or be ready to face a defamation suit “for peddling lies”.

“Chief Minister is continuing with the defamation campaign unleashed by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) seven years back and is now trying to woo the electorate of Gujarat with lies and false promises. Bhagwant Mann may think that he can lie and mislead the people but we will hold him to his words. Now he will have to substantiate his claims by placing the record of the same in the public domain or apologize for the utterances. If he does neither, we will take recourse to legal action against him,” said Sukhbir.

Giving the factual position, Sukhbir said that the truth was that the five times Chief Minister had written to the Protem Speaker immediately after his 2022 assembly election loss and asked that pension due to him for serving 10 terms as a legislator should not be sent to him. “Parkash Singh Badal requested that this money should be used for public welfare, especially education of the girl child,” he reminded.

Stating that the communication was a matter of Vidhan Sabha record, Sukhbir said that the former Chief Minister had also made it clear in the letter that never in his life had he claimed pension as an ex-MLA.

“In light of these facts, it is clear that the Chief Minister is making mischievous comments purposely to show SAD in poor light and herald himself as a messiah who is saving taxpayers money of Rs five lakh per month,” he quipped, adding that actually, the opposite is true.

Taking on, Sukhbir said: “The entire AAP campaign is built on propaganda with Rs 700 crore being earmarked for advertisements in the current financial year only. Hundreds of crores have already been spent on advertising AAP across the country, including poll-bound States like Gujarat. This is taxpayers’ money of Punjabis which should have been utilized for development in the State.”

Also exposing the lies uttered by Bhagwant Mann during the course of his press conference in Gujarat earlier in the day where he claimed that the AAP Government was constructing medical colleges in Punjab, Sukhbir said: “All the medical colleges which have been sanctioned in Punjab are part of a post-Covid initiative of the Central Government and are centrally-funded projects.”