With Punjab waiting for the election results, State Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh on Friday assailed the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) over its spate of “panic reactions” in the wake of the polling to the State Assembly, dubbing them as a sign of the dread in Arvind Kejriwal’s party over its certain defeat.
“After first raising suspicions over the reliability of the EVMs, over which it has been rapped by no less than the judiciary, AAP is now making ridiculous demands, such as installation of its own cameras, at the EVM strong rooms,” Amarinder pointed out, adding that these knee-jerk reactions clearly underlined the party’s desperation in the light of post-poll reports in favour of the Congress.
The Congress chief ministerial candidate was reacting to reports that his AAP rival from Patiala Urban, Balbir Singh, was insisting on permission from the Election Commission to install his own CCTV cameras inside the EVM strong room in the constituency even though large lED screens had already been provided to track and monitor the insides.
While all candidates and parties in the fray had the right and the responsibility to collaborate with the Election Commission (EC) to ensure fool-proof security of EVMs, the sheer paranoia being displayed by the AAP leaders on this count showed that Kejriwal’s party had seen the writing on the wall and was now unnecessarily raking up irrelevant issues to prepare the ground to explain its defeat, said the Congress leader.
Capt also castigated the tendency of AAP, particularly its national convenor Arvind Kejriwal, to lock horns with the EC on all kinds of petty issues, and said this reflected their total disregard for the democratic institutions of the country.
The rise of such parties on India’s political landscape was unfortunate and needed to be nipped in the bud to prevent vitiation of the democratic environment, which forms the bedrock of the nation’s international standing and progress, he added.