Former Indian Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu walked out of Patiala jail after 10 months of rigorous imprisonment in the 1988 road rage case, reported Hindustan Times.
As soon as Sidhu walked out of the jail amid cheers from his supporters who were waiting outside the jail since noon on Saturday for the release of the Congress leader, he said the BJP is stoking violence in Punjab. "There is no such thing as democracy right now. A conspiracy is being hatched to bring President'e Rule in Punjab. Minorities are being targeted. If you try to weaken Punjab, you will become weak," Sidhu said.
"Whenever there is a dictatorship in the country, a revolution followed. And today I can say thumping my chest that the name of that revolution is Rahul Gandhi. Rahul Gandhi will shake the government from its roots," Navjot Singh Sidhu said.
"See what happened today. I was supposed to be released around noon, but they delayed it because they were waiting for the Congress supporters, the media to leave," Sidhu said. "There is no democracy today. Democracy is in shackles. If Bhagwant Mann is listening to me, I want to tell him also that there is a concerted effort to hurt Punjab," Sidhu said.
"Punjab is the shield of this country. But they are trying to destroy this shield. Wherever there is the majority, there is no democracy, there is a conspiracy by the Centre. They create law and order problems and then they clamp down and say peace has come," Sidhu said in his fiery speech just after his release.
All agencies have become slaves and rubber stamps and only listen to 4-6 people, Sidhu said attacking the Centre. "I am not scared of death because what I am doing is not for my family, but for the next generation of Punjab," Sidhu said.
"History is witness that no one has been in jail even for a week for IPC 323. But why did Sidhu then go to jail? Because my predecessors wrote the Constitution and I respect that," Sidhu said.
Sidhu was jailed on May 20 in 2022 in the road rage case in which 65-year-old Gurnam Singh died in 1988. He was released a few weeks early due to his good conduct during imprisonment. His wife and former MLA Dr Navjot Kaur was diagnosed with cancer and was operated when Sidhu was in jail.