CHANDIGARH: Punjab's ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today expelled its veteran leader Balwant Singh Ramoowalia from the primary membership of the party, hours after he joined the cabinet of Samajwadi Party government in Uttar Pradesh.
"Ramoowalia has displayed the height of political opportunism and power hunger by betraying the party which had given him everything to hitch his boat with the Samajwadi Party (SP)," a statement issued by SAD here this evening said. In a setback to SAD, Ramoowalia quit the party and took oath as a Cabinet Minister in SP government in Uttar Pradesh today.
In a joint statement, the SAD leaders said Ramoowalia was "always in the habit of sticking to power and back stabbing". Senior SAD leaders including Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, Balwinder Singh Bhundur, Maheshinder Singh Grewal, Prem Singh Chandumajra and Daljit Singh Cheema said what was most condemnable was that Ramoowalia had not betrayed the SAD due to any ideological reasons "but because he had been rejected by the people of Punjab".
They said it was the SAD that had granted Ramoowalia political recognition by giving him the parliamentary ticket from Faridkot several years back. The leaders claimed that Ramoowalia when out in the cold formed his own party–Lok Bhalai Party (LBP) "which was more in news for exploiting NRIs and innocent Punjabis".
LBP failed to make any impression in two successive elections following which Ramoowalia made a comeback to the SAD (in 2011), they said. Ramoowalia lost during the 2012 assembly elections from Punjab when he contested from Mohali as a SAD candidate.
Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa and Balwinder Bhundur said after the people of Mohali rejected him, there was a clamour from the SAD's rank and file to divest him from the responsibility of leading the party from the constituency in the next assembly elections (due in 2017).
They claimed Ramoowalia got "frustrated" due to these developments. "We fail to understand what lollipop the Samajwadi Party has given to such a failed leader", the SAD leaders sneered. 74-year-old Ramoowalia was today sworn in along with 19 other ministers by UP Governor Ram Naik at a function held at Raj Bhawan in Lucknow following a revamp of Akhilesh Yadav's ministry.