AAP has ''very close links'' with radicals: Sukhbir

Amritsar, July 24

Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on Sunday alleged that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had “very close links” with radical organisations and also termed the recent incident of party MP Bhagwant Mann uploading Parliament’s security set-up on social media as a “very serious lapse”.

“I think it is a very serious (security) lapse, what Bhagwant Mann has done. I openly say that the AAP has very close links with radical organisations,” Sukhbir, who is also Punjab’s Home Minister, told media after offering prayers at the Golden Temple here on Sunday along with his wife and Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal.

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Mann on Thursday shot a video clip of his journey from home to Parliament House, including movement past various security check points, and posted it on social media, drawing flak from various quarters for putting the Parliament complex security in danger.

Cornered by leaders of almost all parties in both Houses, Mann apologised to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and also removed the video from Facebook.

“Radical organisations, people who participated in the ‘Sarbat Khalsa’ (grand assembly of Sikhs), they are all linked to AAP,” Sukhbir said.

Last November, radical Sikh organisations and others held the congregation of radicals near Amritsar.

Sukhbir said the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) is not threatened by the emergence of the AAP on Punjab’s political scene.

“The more the opponents, better for the Akali Dal. The public will control them. People will reject them. No one is now bothered about them,” he said.

Sukhbir, the president of the Akali Dal, which is in alliance with the BJP, refused to comment on cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu and his wife. “I don’t want to comment on them,” he said.

Sidhu had recently quit the Rajya Sabha, where he was nominated by the BJP-led government earlier this year.

His wife is the sitting BJP legislator from the Amritsar East assembly seat and is also a chief parliamentary secretary in the state government. IANS