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Punjab polls: Cong made a mistake by picking CM face on caste lines, says Amarinder
Pointing out that Punjab was never before divided on caste or religious lines, Amarinder said: “Charanjit Channi does not have the calibre of a chief minister, and his tall claims cannot fool the people of the state”
Patiala: Punjab Lok Congress (PLC) chief Captain Amarinder Singh on Tuesday said the Congress had made a big mistake by announcing a CM face as “a chief minister should be decided on grounds of capability and not on the metric of caste, be it a SC, Jat or Hindu, which they had done”.
Pointing out that Punjab was never before divided on caste or religious lines, Amarinder said: “Charanjit Channi does not have the calibre of a chief minister, and his tall claims cannot fool the people of the state.”
“Channi claims he has done everything in 111 days, he’s fooling the people. Every project has a gestation period and takes months to start,” he said, warning the people against getting carried away by such brazen lies since all the projects that Channi talks of were initiated by his government.
Interacting with the media after a public meeting in support of Patiala Rural PLC candidate Sanjeev Kumar Bittu, the former CM warned of an explosion soon from Navjot Singh Sidhu, who had been discarded by his own party for the chief ministerial candidature in favour of Channi, saying the PPCC president was too ambitious to stay quiet for long.
Pointing out that leaders like Channi and Sukhjinder Randhawa had backstabbed him and misled the Congress high command after he had supported them in their political careers, the PLC chief said these men could not be trusted. “They will compromise the interests of Punjab to further their own,” he warned, in response to questions.
Answering a question, Amarinder said there was no comparison between Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi as far as political and public life experience goes. He had known Modi for long and used to meet him frequently in Delhi at a time when they were both chief ministers, he said, adding that the Modi government had helped him whenever Punjab was in dire straits. “We have to work with the BJP to ensure a safe future for Punjab,” he said.
To a question on whether his wife, Congress’ Patiala MP Preneet Kaur, would campaign for him or the Congress, Amarinder said it was for her to answer that. “Politics is different. My mother was in the BJP and I was in the Congress. We sat in opposite benches in Parliament. “Politics politics hoti hai, pyaar pyaar hota hai,” he remarked.
He trashed the surveys favouring the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), saying such polls were conducted even in 2017 and had proven to be false.
