Fishing in troubled waters, Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh on Thursday termed AAP State convener Sucha Singh Chhotepur as a “son of the soil”, and jumped to AAP leader’s defence by condemning the “dirty tricks” adopted by AAP leaders from Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Haryana to “fix” Chhotepur.
Capt Amarinder, a day before, had virtually given a clean chit to Chottepur after his sting video surfaced allegedly showing AAP leader accepting money from a party volunteer.
In an apparent attempt to woo the disgruntled AAP leader, the former Chief Minister wasted no time to praise Chhotepur for “nourished and nurtured the party right from the day of its conception in Punjab”.
“The sting operation has clearly been conceived, planned and executed as a part of an internal coup engineered by the AAP leaders from outside who want to control Punjab through remote by using their local stooges and inconsequential wannabe leaders,” said Capt Amarinder while referring to the so-called sting operation against Chhotepur.
Of late, Chhotepur has apparently been marginalised and leader like party MP Bhagwant Mann, renowned lawyer HS Phoolka, advocate-turned-politician HS Shergill, besides party’s state affairs in-charge Sanjay Singh, co-incharge Durgesh Pathak, have come forward and taken the party’s charge, sending Chhotepur to the background.
On the other hand, Chhotepur too became vocal against the party leadership for “not consulting” him in drafting party’s youth manifesto for 2017 polls, and “ignoring party workers” in ticket distribution.
AAP has, so far, announced 32 of its candidates, by releasing two lists. Chhotepur was not present at the time of announcing the lists, which were announced by Sanjay Singh, and Bhagwant Mann.
Chhotepur had openly expressed his objections to a few names in both lists, and asserted that he would talk to the AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal, who, till date, did not give any time to him to discuss the issue.
Speaking in Chhotepur’s favour, Capt Amarinder said: “Kejriwal should look into the monumental transformation in the lifestyle of leaders like Sanjay Singh and Durgesh Pathak since they started their political career in Punjab. It is a blatantly shameless attempt by people like Arvind Kejriwal, Sanjay Singh, Durgesh Pathak and Ashish Khetan to control the party from Delhi, UP and Haryana...The move is to oust Chhotepur from the AAP.”
Seeking an explanation from Kejriwal and other AAP leaders for the hundreds of crores of rupees collected for the Punjab assembly elections, Capt Amarinder sought a probe into the AAP funding.
Strongly defending Chhotepur on the video clip issue, Capt Amarinder said: “I may have strong political differences with Chhotepur, but I also acknowledge and admire his qualities of honesty and integrity and will not like to keep quiet when he is being made a victim of an internal coup and intrigue.”
He said: “I knew him for last 35 years…It is disgustingly unfair that when you don’t like a man, you start tarnishing and targeting his unblemished image.”
“Kejriwal has a history and character of using and throwing away people. He did it with his mentor Anna Hazare, Kiran Bedi, Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan, and Chhotepur is only the next and not the last in line,” Capt Amarinder said.
He added that two AAP MPs from Punjab — Dr Dharamvira Gandhi and Harinder Khalsa — were also suspended from the AAP for questioning the AAP leadership style.