Taking a dig at Congress leader Capt Amarinder Singh, the ruling SAD in Punjab on Thursday said that the Congress’ lok Sabha candidate from Amritsar seemed to be “running away” from the contest.
“Capt Amarinder seemed to be running away from the contest in Amritsar and was only interested in photo sessions in order to create an appropriate scrapbook for the perusal of the party high command,” said the SAD president Sukhbir Badal, adding that contest in Amritsar is “no contest” at all.
He said that it was strange that Capt Amarinder was least interested in campaigning in Amritsar from where he was contesting the elections.
“He appeared in Amritsar some days back and promptly disappeared after a press conference. Today, after a number of days, we hear he is again coming to Amritsar to address yet another press conference,” he said.
Maintaining that he was a “forced” candidate, he said that this kind of behaviour show his seriousness with which he is taking these elections, and it seemed that he was only interested in holding press conferences which he could present as activities to the party high command.
“He is in the habit of holding such press conferences and even road shows in order to showcase his alleged popularity but never holds public rallies and meetings which would expose his real standing among the people," the SAD president said.
Stating that “photo opportunities” would not help Capt Amarinder any longer, the SAD president said that a groundswell of public sentiment was already emerging in favour of BJP candidate Arun Jaitley.
CAPT ASKS JAITlEY TO CHECK HIS OWN RECORD IN PARlIAMENT
Amritsar: Hitting back at his SAD-BJP rival Arun Jaitley, Punjab’s former Chief Minister and Congress candidate from Amritsar Capt Amarinder Singh on Thursday asked the senior BJP leader to “check records of his own performance in the Parliament before questioning others”.
Responding to Jaitley’s charges about his low attendance in the Punjab legislative Assembly, Capt Amarinder claimed that the “whole country is angry and ashamed of” the way the Opposition under Jaitley’s leadership “sabotaged and undermined the democratic functioning” in Parliament.
lashing out at Cabinet Minister Bikram Singh Majithia for allegedly criminalising politics in Amritsar and while responding to Jaitley’s query asking why he was targeting Majithia when his (Capt Amarinder) fight is with him, the senior Congress leader said that a “man is known by the company he keeps…and Jaitley will be known by the company he is keeping of the goondas like Bikram Majithia and Anil Joshi”.
On his own attendance in the Assembly, Capt Amarinder said that he might not have attended all sittings, but whenever he attended, he found the behaviour of the treasury benches disgusting.Meanwhile at public meeting at Attari, Singh said that the Akali-BJP alliance was most opportunistic. “While the two parties are fighting the election together in Punjab, in the immediate neighbourhood of Haryana, they are fighting against each other,” he added.