CHANDIGARH: Punjab Congress MLAs Navjot Singh Sidhu and Pargat Singh, and the state technical education minister Charanjeet Singh Channi, who have have criticised Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh over the sacrilege case, are now beginning to feel the heat. The state Vigilance Bureau has launched an inquiry against close aides and wife of Sidhu over some land deals. It has reportedly prepared dossiers against him and his wife Dr Navjot Kaur Sidhu.
Amritsar SSP (Vigilance Bureau) Parampal Singh has submitted a seventeen-page unsigned report on “shady deals” involving Sidhu’s wife or his close aides. The report noted that one of Sidhu’s aides was instrumental in getting Change in Land Use (CLUs) files of illegal and unauthorised colonies cleared.
Meanwhile, Pargat has allegedly received threats from the political secretary to the chief minister. Pargat said Capt Sandeep Sandhu, the political secretary to Capt Amarinder Singh has threatened to book him in a police case for raising his voice against the CM on the issue of sacrilege and police firing.
“Being a former captain of the Indian hockey team, I was shocked to have gotten such a message. But if speaking truth on the sacrilege and the police firing cases was not acceptable to them, let them do whatever they want,” he said.Pargat alleged that other MLAs and ministers too are being arm-twisted.
“If the Vigilance has to do something, it should take irrigation scam to its logical conclusion. But the government is making efforts to save the big guns who are involved,” Pargat said. Pargat had met cabinet ministers Sukhjinder Randhawa and Charanjit Channi, MP Partap Bajwa, and former minister and MLA Navjot Singh Sidhu among others on the sacrilege issue.
For Channi, the trouble has come from the Punjab State Women Commission, which has issued a notice to the state government seeking a status report on a two-year-old case of a female IAS officer, who has accused Channi of sending inappropriate messages to her.