Chandigarh, January 19 – The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today said the Punjab Congress had fallen back on holding a sham in-house hunger strike after the people of the State resolutely rejected PCC President Partap Singh Bajwa’s decision to take support of a dreaded drug lord to attack the SAD-BJP government.

Terming the hunger strike as a “photo opportunity” to keep himself in the news, SAD spokesman Dr Daljit Singh Cheema and general secretary Sharanjit Singh Dhillon said it was ironic that Punjab Congress President Partap Bajwa who had launched an agitation programme with much fanfare recently, had fallen back on an in house hunger strike in the comfort of the party office here in the union territory.

“Mr Partap Bajwa has seen the fate of the ‘chakka jam’ programme held recently which saw uninterrupted movement of traffic across the State even as few henchmen of the PCC chief went in for symbolic protests to please their boss”, the SAD leaders said.

They said this was the main reason why the PCC chief had diluted his agitation programme and had decided to release well calibrated photographs for dispatch to the party high command to show that an agitation was in progress when nothing existed on the ground. The leaders said the ‘hunger strike’ was also aimed at shifting focus away from the on-going factional fight in the Punjab Congress.

The SAD meanwhile reiterated its decision to take the case against the drug mafia inPunjabto its logical end. Dr Cheema exhorted the government to go after the collaborators of the drug lords also in order to rid drugs from civil society.