Former Punjab Congress leader Pargat Singh on Tuesday claimed that the Congress removed Captain Amarinder Singh from the Chief Minister’s post because he allegedly had a secret understanding with the Badals to go easy on the investigation into the 2015 sacrilege cases.

Pargat said that when Charanjit Singh Channi took over as CM towards the end of the Congress term, he had very little time to complete the long-delayed probe.

He also challenged Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to explain why there has been no progress in the case against Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim over the sacrilege incidents.

The sacrilege cases — involving the desecration of religious scriptures at gurdwaras in Bargari and Burj Jawahar Singh Wala villages in Faridkot — took place during the SAD-BJP rule, when Parkash Singh Badal was CM and Sukhbir Badal was Deputy CM.

Pargat’s remarks come after both AAP and SAD chief Sukhbir Badal accused Congress of protecting those responsible for the sacrilege. He said Amarinder Singh, now in the BJP, went soft on the investigation.

According to Pargat, the Channi-led Congress government did what it could in its short 100-day tenure. The SIT questioned the Dera chief twice in jail for the sacrilege cases and once in the Maur blast case. He added that the Dera chief was also named in a supplementary charge sheet submitted to court.

Pargat accused the AAP government of doing little in the last three years apart from passing a law on sacrilege. He also criticized Sukhbir Badal for “politicizing” the issue to delay justice.

He alleged that both the BJP and AAP protected the Dera chief during their rule, and questioned why AAP MLAs never raised the issue. He further claimed the cases against Dera followers were moved out of Punjab as part of a conspiracy.