‘Arrest Sukhbir over blast’

Chandigarh (PTI): Blaming Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal for the Tuesday bomb blast, the AAP on Wednesday urged the Election Commission to intervene and get him (Sukhbir) arrested.

While alleging that Sukhbir Badal and the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal leadership in Punjab could be behind the Maur Mandi car blast, AAP General Secretary Sanjay Singh said Sukhbir Badal's arrest was essential to ensure peaceful assembly elections in Punjab on February 4.

An Aam Aadmi Party delegation led by Sanjay Singh met Punjab Chief Electoral Officer V.K. Singh here and sought the panel's intervention.

"AAP has given a complaint against Sukhbir Badal to the Election Commission, seeking his arrest and interrogation," Singh told the media here.

"We have no doubt that the frustrated SAD and Congress were behind incidents of violence and they can commit any heinous crime to disturb the election process," he said. He said that Akali Dal and Congress leaders were hand in glove to create a tense atmosphere in the state.

Sanjay Singh said the Punjab government had failed to solve any of the sacrilege cases of Guru Granth Sahib, high-profile murders in Jalandhar and Ludhiana and the Nabha jailbreak by gangsters.

The death toll in Tuesday evening's car bomb blast near Bathinda city rose to five on Wednesday with two more children who were seriously injured succumbing to their injuries.

The victims include two men and three children. Earlier, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal demanded the arrest of Sukhbir Badal, son of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and also the Home Minister.

"To ensure peaceful elections, Sukhbir Badal should be immediately arrested. His role in (the) blast be probed. He will cause more violence," the AAP leader tweeted.

"Sukhbir Badal is a hardened criminal who will go to any extent to ruin Punjab and its peace.

‘BJP to get two-thirds majority in U’khand’

BJP in Uttarakhand claimed that it would perform even better in the Assembly polls as compared to the projections in the opinion polls which showed that the party would get 40-44 seats out of the total 70 seats in the state.

"We will perform even better than the opinion poll projections. We will sweep to power with a two-thirds majority," state BJP media in-charge Devendra Bhasin said here.

Claiming there is a "wave" in favour of BJP, he said as campaigning gathers momentum this wave will transform into a storm which will oust the current Congress government from the power.

"People are desperately looking for change and they are with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's grand vision for Uttarakhand which is being incorporated into the party's vision document for the state," Bhasin claimed.