The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday said that Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann was “shamelessly lying” after the Aam Aadmi Party alleged that the Centre was being discriminatory by rejecting the tableau of the state for the Republic Day parade, reported the Hindustan Times.

The annual Republic Day parade held in the national capital includes a procession of tableaux from a certain number of states. A committee decides every year on which states will get the opportunity.

Mann alleged on Wednesday that the BJP-led Union government was discriminating against Punjab in this matter.

“The power-mad Centre is demeaning and humiliating the enormous sacrifices made by Punjabis in the national freedom struggle,” Mann had said at a press conference on Wednesday, reported The Indian Express.

He added: “It is unfortunate that on one hand devotees from across the globe are paying obeisance at Fatehgarh Sahib to pay homage to Sahibzadas of Guru Gobind Singh, Baba Zorawar Singh and Baba Fateh Singh along with Mata Gujri, the BJP government was playing dirty tactics to humiliate Punjab. This indifferent treatment is unacceptable and unwarranted.”

Mann alleged that the BJP government had deliberately denied Punjab the opportunity to display its tableaux in the last two years.

“Almost 90% states that have been selected for tableaux are being ruled by the BJP, which indicates the saffronisation of Republic Day and Independence Day by the Narendra Modi government,” Mann said.

On Friday, Aam Aadmi Party leader and Delhi minister Saurabh Bhardwaj said that the city’s tableau for the parade had also been rejected for the third consecutive year.

Bhardwaj alleged that the BJP government at the Centre rejected the tableaux of Delhi and Punjab to “exact revenge on AAP”, which is in power in both the states.

“In 2022, the theme was ‘Resolve 75’ in which our design was rejected in the second round of meetings,” Bharadwaj said. “In 2023, the theme was ‘Nari Shakti’ [and] our design was again rejected, and in 2024, the theme is ‘Viksit Bharat’ and our tableau was again rejected irrespective of the education and health model of the Delhi government that was portrayed in the tableau...”

On these allegations, the BJP has claimed that the real reason for the rejection of Punjab’s tableau was that it featured the pictures of Mann and Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal.

“The real reason for rejection of Punjab tableau is that it prominently showed [pictures] of Arvind Kejriwal and Bhagwant Mann rather than Mai Bhago Ji or martyrs!” BJP leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa claimed in a social media post. “Mann sahab is shamelessly lying, and worst is he has surrendered Punjab’s sovereignty at the feet of Kejriwal. You made Punjab the slave of Kejriwal in the name of change”.

French President Emmanuel Macron will be the chief guest for the 2024 Republic Day celebrations.