Amarinder Singh trashes Shwait Malik’s remarks, says have given full freedom to officials

Chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Sunday trashed BJP state unit president Shwait Malik’s remarks on his and his government’s functioning, accusing him of resorting to “cheap tactics” to divert the attention of the people from his party’s “failure” at the Centre.

The CM’s statement came two days after Malik questioned the functioning of the Congress government in the state.

The CM said he was elected by the people of Punjab, not the BJP, to run the state. He asked Malik to stay out of the affairs of the government and stick to managing his own party, which was staring at total decimation in the state in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

“Does Malik even know how we (my government and team) are working? Does he have any clue about how I am managing the state and its governance?” questioned the CM.

“My officials and team members are following my directives for which they had been appointed,” said Amarinder, dismissing Malik’s statement as totally absurd and nonsensical.

Given the BJP’s own track record of misgovernance, no member of that party had any locus stand to comment on the functioning of the incumbent Congress government under his leadership, said Amarinder.

On Friday, Malik had attacked the Amarinder-led Congress government accusing it of failing on all the fronts in the last 18 months.

Amarinder Singh said unlike the Akalis, who never allowed its ministers, including those from the BJP, and officers to work independently, he believed in decentralisation of authority.

“I have given full freedom to my ministers to work and as for the officers, I issue instructions to my chief principal secretary, chief secretary, director general of police, and principal secretary to carry them out,” he said, adding that Malik perhaps wouldn’t understand this as such autonomy eludes BJP’s form of governance.

First Published: Sep 30, 2018 21:39 IST