Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Wednesday came down heavily against both the Central and the Punjab governments for what he described as "Central rule by proxy".
The SAD president said that the sudden and unscheduled meeting between Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and Union Home Minister had apparently cleared the decks for this "highly provocative and dangerous move."
"The Punjab Chief Minister to show intent and "act or abdicate," he said.
The SAD president was reacting to the Centre's move to empowered the Border Security Force (BSF) to conduct searches, arrest suspects and make seizures up to an area of 50 km inside Indian territory from the International Border (IB) along India-Pakistan and India-Bangladesh borders.
It is most unlikely that the Centre would have taken such a drastic decision without the knowledge and prior consent of the state government and all the noises which Channi and his colleagues are now making are a mere attempt to hide their complicity in this decision, said the SAD chief in a statement.
He asked the CM to take the people of the state into confidence on what his government proposes to do to stop the Centre from sabotaging the democratic processes and the federal principle in Punjab.
The Center has no constitutional right to deploy forces in the state without the prior concurrence of the state government. There is no worth of state government if law and order are handed over to the centre, Badal said.
"The Punjab Police has been rendered toothless and totally powerless in this circumstance. In fact, they have lost their relevance. It is a drastic decision and it is impossible that the Centre would implement it without taking the state government into confidence beforehand," he added.
Badal said that reaction of former Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh who is still a part of the Congress party clearly showed that something deeper than meets the eye is at play.
"CM Channi and other Congress leaders who never waste an opportunity to go viral over even the most minor issues are content to issue routine and formal statements showing their disagreements," he said.
( With inputs from ANI )
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