Shiromani Akali Dal to vote against UPA

CHANDIGARH: Rejecting speculation that the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) would vote for the UPA government on the trust vote and bail out a Sikh prime minister, the party with eight MPs in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday decided to vote with the NDA on July 22.
Ridiculing the appeal of Punjab Congress and some Sikh outfits to not topple a government headed by an "able, honest Sikh prime minister", Punjab chief minister and SAD patron Parkash Singh Badal said such suggestions were "communal" and out of tune with India's democratic and secular ethos.
"Are political issues to be settled on the basis of one's religion? This is petty narrow thinking," said Badal. He then added that he has great regard for Manmohan Singh as an individual but his party has serious differences with the Congress because of its anti-Punjab and anti-Sikh stance.
When reminded that SAD had supported late Giani Zail Singh in the presidential poll in the early 1980s because the party wanted a Sikh as president despite the fact that he was a Congress nominee, Badal said that election was for the top constitutional post. For that, at times, even all the political parties can develop a consensus. "The two issues should not be confused," Badal said, indicating there could be no such consensus on supporting the PM of rival party in a parliamentary democracy.
Skirting questions on whether the deal was in national interest or if the Akalis would go against the aspirations of the Sikhs in general, Badal said the Union government should have taken all the political parties into confidence on the nuclear issue.