Chandigarh: The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today accused leader of opposition and AAP MLA Sukhpal Khaira of "surrendering" before Congress to "save himself in a cross-border drug trafficking case".

SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia also charged him with becoming the "B" team of the Congress party.

Addressing a press conference in the Vidhan Sabha press gallery, former minister Bikram Singh Majithia alleged the manner in which Sukhpal Khaira rose to support the Congress government in the Assembly today when the issue of giving compensation to families of Punjabi youth killed in Iraq was raised by him had exposed the "unholy nexus" between the Congress party and the leader of opposition party.

Majithia said yesterday Congress legislator Rana Gurmeet Sodhi had demanded that the Union government give Rs one crore compensation to family members of each of the 27 Punjabis killed in Iraq.

"I took this issue forward because five of those killed belong to my constituency and requested the state should give a matching grant as well as jobs to relatives of the deceased. Instead of speaking up for the aggrieved families, Khaira rose up to thank chief minister Amarinder Singh for his magnanimity," he claimed.

Alleging there was a "wider conspiracy", the former minister said Khaira allegedly tried to break the AAP state unit first to form a separate party.

"The idea was to join the Congress along with all the legislators of the new party. Khaira wanted a trigger to take the new group to the Congress. However the AAP MLAs saw through his game plan. Now Khaira will join the Congress. It is only a matter of few months", he claimed.  PTI