Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Monday assured all possible assistance to farmers, whose wheat crop has been destroyed in recent hailstorms across the state. He recalled how the party had supported flood-affected farmers last year with fodder, seeds and medicines.Addressing the party’s Punjab Bachao Rally in Muktsar town, he urged party leaders and workers to extend help to affected farmers like last year’s relief work during floods. He said their welfare would be the top priority of the next SAD government. He promised the introduction of a comprehensive crop insurance scheme to ensure that farmers were compensated during natural calamities.Sukhbir also demanded that Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann should immediately release Rs 50,000 per acre as compensation to the farmers who had suffered crop loss. “The AAP government must honour its poll promise. Surveys can follow later, but immediate relief is essential,” he said.The SAD chief visited hailstorm-hit villages, including Bhagsar, Gandhar and Lakhewali, where over 70 per cent of the wheat crop had reportedly been damaged.Targeting the state government, he dismissed claims that Punjab had become power surplus under AAP, asserting that no new power plant had been set up by the current or previous Congress government. He credited earlier SAD regimes for the achievement.He also challenged the CM to visit any village without security and reiterated promises to restore lift irrigation pumps, provide reservation for the Bauriya community and address issues faced by mumberdars.Row over power theft chargeThe CM, in Patiala on Monday, claimed that the SAD rally at Muktsar was held using a “kundi” connection from an electricity transformer and said an FIR would be registered in that regard.SAD’s Muktsar constituency in-charge Kanwarjit Singh Rozy Barkandi, however, said, “Someone has done mischief by making a video showing a cable coming from an electricity transformer. I ask the CM, can a rally with such a sound system, lights, fans, coolers and ACs be run on such a cable? The CM should verify facts before making statements. This is why he has to take a U-turn most of the time. I have learnt that a cricket coach or some players use this cable to provide supply to the lights installed in the ground to play in the evening. If the CM wants to harm them, then he can do.”Meanwhile, a senior official in Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) said, “A team, along with the police, was sent to the SAD’s rally venue, but nothing objectionable was found there. The video showed a cable, which cannot handle the power load required for such a rally, and it did not show where it was going ahead.”