The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Friday said that Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh's visit to North America had turned out to be a complete flop show. The party stated that the ‘Maharaja’ could now leave all pretences aside and start holidaying as per his original plan.
“PPCC president's intentions had become clear from April 19, the day he set foot in Chicago. Amarinder remained holed up in a luxurious hotel and received multi-millionaire NRIs only in his room to the exclusion of everyone else,” said SAD general secretary Daljit Singh Cheema.
He added, “Amarinder wanted to meet wealthy NRIs only and was not interested in interacting with the common man…That is why Amarinder's team did not follow the due procedure resulting in him not getting permission to hold political rallies in Canada now.”
Cheema said that if seen from this standpoint, it was clear Amarinder was only letting out steam by writing a protest letter to the Canadian Prime Minister in this regard.
“This is an eye wash. Punjabis know about your carefree nature and your desire to shift to cooler climes during the summer months. It, therefore, should not surprise NRIs also that they have also been misled into believing that Amarinder really wanted to interact with them and know about their problems when he had no such intention,” said Cheema.
Cheema said that this proved that Amarinder had gone abroad solely to collect funds and never had any intention of meeting ordinary NRIs publically.
Urging Amarinder not to lower the standard of polity by refusing to even meet the ordinary NRI and continuing to practice the ‘darbari’ culture which had been rejected by the people of Punjab, the Akali leader also asked him to spare NRIs from the greed and avarice of his party as well as his coterie.
Cheema also challenged Capt Amarinder to spell out any series of initiatives or even one initiative he had taken to mitigate the problems of NRIs.