Week on, Mann returns with video on Facebook

BHATINDA: Having stayed away from Punjab's political landscape since his party's massive rally in Moga on September 11, AAP MP Bhagwant Mann resurfaced on Sunday , though only on the internet. In a video message on his Facebook page, the comedian-turned-politician dismissed talks of him being absent over a rift in the party and said that he had taken time off to catch up with his family .
Within seven hours of being uploaded, Mann's 15-minute video had 66,000 views and 13,000 likes.In another post on his Facebook page, Mann announced that he would be meeting members of the public at the PWD house in Sangrur on Monday .
Mann also used the video to take on SAD patron and Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, Punjab Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singh, and Union minister Harsimrat Badal. “I had not met my family for long, and used this off time for that. I sat down and had a heartto-heart conversation with my mother, who I had not met for eight months,“ he said in the video.
Mann used metaphors to explain how AAP was united in the face of an internal rift in the party . “The `jharu' (broom) has not been destroyed. We have lost just two-three bristles. The rope which ties the broom together is still intact,“ he said.
He said many political rivals had written AAP off, but that was not true. “Leaders joining and leaving a party happens. It is the ideology that should not change. In AAP , it is intact,“ he said.
Mann took on Parkash Singh Badal for saying that the government would find Mann if somebody filed a complaint du ring his absence. “If the state government is really serious about the people's welfare, it should not worry about me and should instead find ways to revive the lost glory of Punjab,“ he said. “It should find persons guilty of repeated acts of desecrations, find persons behind the Rs 12,000crore grain scam, find a cure for women who have lost their husbands and sons to farm debt and drug addiction, should find jobs for unemployed youth who are climbing water tanks in protest,“ he said.
He also rubbished SAD leader Harsimrat Badal's claim that he had gone for a meeting with Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi. “It is untrue and scandalous,“ he said.