Chandigarh: Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) candidate from Chandigarh Hardeep Singh Buterla withdrew from parliamentary polls Monday citing party indifference and lack of financial support for his campaign.
Addressing a press conference in Chandigarh Monday evening, 41-year-old Hardeep Singh — SAD’s lone municipal councillor in Chandigarh — announced he was also resigning from the party. But he also said he would continue to work as an independent councillor.
“I’m the son of a farmer and belong to a humble family. I continued with the campaign for as long as I could but cannot go on,” he said, adding that he had no plans to join another party.
Hardeep Singh was against Congress-AAP alliance candidate Manish Tewari and BJP’s Sanjay Tandon. Chandigarh’s lone Lok Sabha seat, which is headed for a two-way contest between Tewari and Tandon, will go to polls in the last phase of the election on 1 June, along with Punjab’s 13 constituencies.
In its official reaction, SAD called it Buterla’s “moral cowardice” and claimed someone else was “pulling his strings”.
“Not only the Shiromami Akali Dal but the entire country knows which forces are busy in a vulgar exercise to destroy democracy in the country,” advocate Arshdeep Singh Kler, SAD’s chief spokesperson, said in the statement.
He further said: “We have nothing against Hardeep Buterla, nor against anything that he is reading from a prepared script by those pulling his strings. In fact, we are disappointed over his moral cowardice and sympathise with him over his inability to stand up to the pressures that must have forced him to take this step. The nation is watching what all is being done to derail the free and fair election process.”
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‘No support, interest’
During his press conference, Buterla accused SAD’s leadership of neither showing an interest in the party’s campaign for Chandigarh nor offering him any support.
“Chandigarh is the fourteenth seat of Punjab and yet there is no interest among party leaders in the campaign here,” he said, adding that meanwhile, party president Sukhbir Singh Badal had visited almost every constituency in Punjab in the last two months as part of his ongoing ‘Punjab Bachao Yatra’.
SAD had never offered him any support even during his campaigns for municipal elections, the three-time councillor claimed.
“When I was declared the party candidate for the Lok Sabha election, I, along with my unit, went to meet party president Sukhbir Singh Badal. We told him it wouldn’t be possible for me to contest the elections on my own steam and that I would need help from the party,” he said, adding that despite promises, he got no help.
He added that he remained loyal to SAD despite getting offers from both BJP and AAP.
“A lot of things were offered to me to switch sides but I did not. I have left my party today but will remain loyal to the residents of my ward. I’m committed to them and will fulfill my promises to them,” he said.
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