Don't question, salute the guts of our forces, Harsimrat Kaur Badal to Opposition (IANS Exclusive)

Days after burying differences and finalizing seat-sharing agreement with Bharatiya Janata Party in Punjab, Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Wednesday lashed out at the Opposition for asking how many people died in air strike on terror camps in Pakistan.

In an interview with IANS, the Union Minister of Food Processing said the Congress and 21 opposition parties are speaking the language of Pakistan.

"It is shameful that you are questioning our armed forces and believing what Pakistan is saying," she said launching a blistering attack on the Opposition for not believing the the armed forces.

The minister said she was worried that the Opposition's stand will affect the morale of the armed forces. She said that going into the enemy territory and targeting terror camps in itself is a commendable achievement and required guts.

"Forget about how many people died. Are you not believing the head of our air force who said we went into the enemy territory. Even Pakistan has accepted this fact," she said.

Confident after the seat-sharing agreement under which the SAD (Badal) and BJP decided to contest the same number of seats as in 2014 (SAD-B will contest 10 and the BJP 3 of the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab), Harsimrat Kaur Badal said the alliance will hit the bull's eye this time by winning all 13 Lok Sabha seats.

She brushed aside fierce infighting within her own party's camp saying these dissenting voices were "zeroes to start with and if you keep adding zeros the result is going to be zero".

The Union minister said the Congress has been attempting divide-and-rule in Punjab for many years, and that this time it was no different.

Amidst reports that SAD (B) patriarch Parkash Singh Badal may enter electoral fray as the party is facing one of its toughest battles, Harsimrat Kaur said the party will decide he will contest or not, but at the moment he is not keen.

Dismissing Aam Admi Party (AAP), the third force in Punjab, as an irrelevant factor, she said the contest is going to be two-way only. "No one knows which AAP is there in Punjab. Punjab has four AAPs," she said saying AAP was in total disarray.

The Union Minister, who is a Member of Parliament from Bathinda, said the party will decide if she will contest from the same constituency, but she has a lot to show in terms of work.

She is not afraid to take on even Congress leader and arch rival Navjot Singh's wife Navjot Kaur Sidhu from Bhatinda. "It will make the contest interesting," she said on reports that the Congress might field the wife of the cricketer whom SAD-B has labelled as anti-national for supporting Pakistan.

(Gautam Datt can be contacted at gautam.d@ians.in)

--IANS

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