Pitted against each other from Amritsar parliamentary constituency, the BJP stalwart Arun Jaitley and senior Congress leader Capt Amarinder Singh have started a war of words much before the actual electoral battle.
The two have been responding to each other’s remarks by issuing one statement after another, or by keying in the thoughts on blog. After the former Chief Minister took on Jaitley by terming him an “outsider”, the three-time Rajya Sabha member reacted by poising a question on the Congress national president Sonia Gandhi’s statehood.
Angry over Jaitley “dragging” the party chief into the issue, Amarinder retorted by reminding him of Indian tradition where daughter-in-law is the “real inheritor” of the family legacy.“Despite my ancestral roots in Punjab, Captain Sahib (Amarinder) called me an ‘outsider’ and a ‘pseudo’ Punjabi. Will he be kind enough to tell me which State in India does (Congress President) Mrs Sonia Gandhi belong toIJ” Jaitley wrote on his blog.
The blog read, “Regrettably, he is resorting to his old USP — lower the level of debate through personalised and discourteous language....I have to resist the temptation of reciprocating in the same manner. However, a polite response is necessary.”
Taking a dig at his rival, Jaitley added that he had still not come to Amritsar. “But will he ever be available to the people of Amritsar at all. Past experience shows that he has been inaccessible not only to the people but also to his own party leaders including his Ministers. His availability is only for a few hours since otherwise his palace is always inaccessible to the common man,” said Jaitley.
Hitting back, Amarinder said: “I always thought Jaitley was a gentleman, but I am sorry to read about his shameless attempts to question the statehood of Gandhi when she had nothing to do about what I had said yesterday in a newspaper interview about Jaitley.”
“But let me remind Jaitley of our great Indian culture and tradition which accepts the daughters-in-law as the real inheritors of the house and not the daughters irrespective of which place they come from,” said the Congress leader in his official statement.
“Every time you (BJP) have tried to rake up this issue (of Sonia’s origin issue) you have badly lost as people of the country have repeatedly rejected your chauvinistic and xenophobic rabble rousing,” he said. Amarinder said that it was too obvious as to who is lowering the level of debate by “desperately trying to drag someone who has nothing to do in an argument”.
“let Jaitley tell me when did he last visit Punjab, leave aside contesting an election from here,” he added.Taking on Jaitley for not facing elections in his three-decade long tenure, Amarinder remarked, “I don’t want to say as whose accessibility should be questioned — the one who has been in electoral politics for last four and a half decades or the one who has always chosen backdoor entry to the legislature.”
“For Jaitley’s information, my political office in New Moti Bagh Palace remains open seven days a week from 8 in the morning till 8 in the evening and Jaitley is welcome to visit anytime that suits his convenience and have a coffee with me,” he added.
Joining the war, former Congressman-turned-Akali leader Avtar Singh Brar urged the former Chief Minister to tell the people of Amritsar how loyally he had represented the constituents of Samana and Patiala who had elected him to the Punjab Vidhan Sabha during his last three terms as a legislator.