Shiromani Akali Dal leaders and workers in Faridkot staged a protest dharna outside the SSP office on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday following the arrest of the party’s urban district president, Satish Kumar Grover.
The arrest is linked to an FIR registered against six persons, including senior Akali leader Parambans Singh Bunty Romana and several unidentified individuals, after a confrontation erupted over the rejection of Akali Dal candidates’ nomination papers during scrutiny for the upcoming Municipal Council elections on Wednesday evening.
The Akali Dal alleged that election officials, acting under pressure from the ruling party, had wrongfully rejected its candidates’ nomination papers on minor and trivial grounds. The party had been staging continuous protests outside the Returning Officer’s office ever since.
As news of Grover’s arrest spread late on Wednesday evening, a large number of Akali workers and leaders gathered outside the SSP office and staged a sit-in dharna demanding his immediate release.
Akali leaders accused local AAP MLA Gurdit Singh Sekhon of misusing political influence to pressure police into arresting opposition leaders and disrupting their election campaign.
SAD leader Vijay Chhabra said the ruling Aam Aadmi Party was resorting to malicious tactics out of fear of defeat in the municipal polls. “Not a single SAD worker will bow to this intimidation,” he declared.
Uma Grover, wife of the arrested leader, and Sherry Romana, wife of Bunty Romana, alleged that the arrests were aimed at keeping the leaders away from voters during the campaign. However, they asserted that the Akali Dal would sweep the municipal elections.
An official police statement on the specific charges was still awaited, as the police had not uploaded the FIR till the filing of this report.
