Amarinder asks Badal to undergo lie detector test
Taking a dig at chief minister Parkash Singh Badal for speaking "outright lies", Congress candidate from Amritsar Capt Amarinder Singh asked him to better undergo a "lie detector test to redeem and salvage his pride and prestige".
Taking a dig at chief minister Parkash Singh Badal for speaking "outright lies", Congress candidate from Amritsar Capt Amarinder Singh asked him to better undergo a "lie detector test to redeem and salvage his pride and prestige".
Terming Badal a "congenital and compulsive liar", Amarinder even challenged him to hold a public referendum to establish as who was considered to be a liar by the people of Punjab.
Reacting to Badal's claims that the White Paper (on Operation Bluestar) was "written by the Government of India", Amarinder, in a Facebook posting and later in a statement on Wednesday, pointed out that as a five-time chief minister Badal should know that "government White Papers are sacrosanct documents based on truth and facts."
"He is trying to get away by saying even the White Paper was wrong and factually incorrect,"he noted.
About the Rajiv-Longowal Accord, the former chief minister said, "either Badal is resorting to outright lies as a congenital liar or has actually grown senile and forgotten his memory as I was not at all in the Congress when the accord was signed and had no role in it".
He pointed out that he had resigned from Parliament and the Congress immediately after Operation Bluestar in June 1984, while the accord was signed nearly after a year.
Amarinder said the architect of the Rajiv-Longowal Accord was the then Punjab governor Arjun Singh, while he himself was out of the Congress. However, he added, "I was the first to welcome the accord as I felt it was the first step towards restoring peace and normalcy in Punjab, while Badal opposed and tried to sabotage it and also betrayed his own leader, the late Sant Harchand Singh Longowal."
Referring to Badal's charges that he got out of the car as he did not want to meet a RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) officer, Amarinder said he had said it publicly as also in the Punjab assembly during his tenure as the chief minister that he (Badal) got down from the car while they were going to meet the then defence minister R Venkataraman. The incident took place a few months prior to the June 1984 army operation.
"I have said it earlier, and I am saying it again that you did not get down from the car for any ideological or sincere commitments to any cause, but in an act of cowardice fearing that you may be seen by people there,"he claimed while pointing out that there were two more people in the car, including Gurcharan Singh Tohra and Surjit Singh Barnala, who were witness to it.