Says people ready to show the door to Cong in municipal elections
Chandigarh, August 11
Former chief parliamentary secretary and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Beopar wing President N K Sharma today welcomed the high court ordered staying the ward delimitation exercise in Zirakpur, saying the verdict was a big victory for democracy.
In a statement here, Mr N K Sharma said the Congress government was trying to change the boundaries of wards for the forthcoming municipal elections in Punjab as per the dictates of its legislators and party leaders. He said now that the high court had stayed the delimitation exercise in Zirakpur he was confident the Congress party would be thwarted from engaging in a similar exercise in other towns and cities in the State.
Mr Sharma said the government was trying to bulldoze the delimitation process which was objected to by the high court also. He said the government was taking advantage of restrictions imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic to change ward boundaries. “The government has clamped down on democratic protests and therefore people cannot raise their voice against this injustice. That is why we approached the high court which has stopped the government in its tracks”.
The SAD leader said the Congress government was fearful of facing the people and that it why it was planning to hijack the entire municipal election by changing ward boundaries. “The strategy is to confuse people and ensure they do not step out to vote so that the elections can be rigged at will by Congressmen”. He said any delimitation, if it was to take place in the future, should be done by the Election Commissioner and not the Municipal authorities.
Mr Sharma said the people were ready to show the door to the Congress party in the municipal elections. “The party has failed on all fronts be it lack of development in municipal towns and cities, increase in water and power tariff and increase in taxes. The government has failed to give any relief to citizens who lost their livelihood during COVID-19. People are waiting to first defeat it in the municipal elections and then in the assembly elections in 2022”, Mr Sharma added.