E-Paper
Punjab BJP working president assumes office, slams CM
Ashwani Sharma says Punjab CM launched Yudh Nashian Virudh campaign to “divert attention from the AAP’s failure to fulfil its key poll pledge of eliminating drugs within 30 days of assuming power”
Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Punjab working president Ashwani Sharma on Sunday hit back at chief minister Bhagwant Mann over his remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah, stating that the party would respond in the same language. After assuming charge of the office in the presence of state unit president Sunil Jakhar, Union minister Ravneet Singh Bittu and BJP national secretary Narinder Singh Raina among others, Sharma said, “Mann seems to have forgotten he is no longer a stage performer but holds the constitutional office of the chief minister of Punjab.”
Mann had recently questioned the PM’s foreign visits. “Mann has been running a circus instead of a government over the past three years and four months. The CM is diverting Punjabis’ attention from pressing issues by raising trivial matters,” he said. He questioned why Mann, despite convening a special assembly session on sacrilege, failed to deliver on Arvind Kejriwal’s January 12, 2022, promise of ensuring justice within 30 days in sacrilege cases, including Bargari, through fast-track courts.
To divert attention from the AAP’s failure to fulfil its key election pledge of eliminating drugs within 30 days of assuming power, Mann launched “Yudh Nashian Virudh as a diversionary tactic”. On the BBMB issue, Sharma claimed the AAP government has neglected Punjab’s interests by failing to fill the state’s quota of 2,550 posts in the Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) over the past three years. “Instead of addressing this, the government has repeatedly raised the issue of central security forces’ deployment in NITI Aayog meetings, passing resolutions in cabinet and assembly sessions,” he claimed. Sharma argued that objections should have been raised in the BBMB board meetings to halt the CISF appointment.
