Punjab Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa termed the allegations levelled by former Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh against him and his brother Fateh Bajwa that they had tried to sabotage his campaign in Amritsar as “utter lies”.
“I reject the allegations with the contempt they deserve,” he said.
In a statement issued on Saturday, Bajwa said it was his prerogative to visit any constituency in the State as the party president but in this case, Capt Amarinder Singh was resorting to such blatant falsehood for the reasons best known to him.
“Is he motivated by the desire to occupy the post of the PPCC chief from which he had to go following successive defeats of the Congress in every election beginning with 2007IJ It is Capt Amarinder Singh who handed over the Government on a platter to Akali Dal in 2012 when even Parkash Singh Badal and Sukhbir Singh Badal could never imagine that they would return to power,” he said.
“Capt Amarinder Singh is trying to deflect from the real issue as a number of MlAs and leaders from other areas had camped in Amritsar throughout the campaign neglecting their own regions and it was this strategy of his which resulted in colossal loss in other areas. Now when he will have to explain this situation to the party high command, he is trying to raise frivolous and baseless issues and levelling false allegations to divert focus. It was because of this reason that the party got defeated in Gurdaspur, Khadoor Sahib, Bathinda, Anandpur Sahib and Sangrur,” alleged Bajwa.
The Congress would have performed much better had he not invited all these leaders to campaign for him in Amritsar, said Bajwa.
The PPCC chief said his brother was bed ridden for more than a week during the election campaign and he had no time to go out of Gurdaspur as he himself was contesting the election.
Bajwa advised Capt Amarinder Singh, who was a senior leader and member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), to strengthen the hands of the party president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi, at this critical juncture rather than indulging in such frivolities which did not behove such a senior person.
Amarinder’s moral authority contested
Chandigarh: Several Punjab Congress MlAs and other senior leaders challenged the moral authority of the former chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh to question the leadership of the State party chief, Partap Singh Bajwa, reminding him that the party had been reduced to just two seats in the 2004 lok Sabha elections when he was the chief minister.
In a statement issued here, these leaders reminded Capt Amarinder Singh that he did not offer his resignation to the party high command, neither did he own the responsibility at that time. They said it was strange that the person under whose leadership the Congress had suffered successive defeats was leading the campaign against Bajwa. They said for the first time in the history of Punjab, it was under his presidency that the Akali Dal had tasted successive victories in the Assembly elections which was unprecedented and that too at the time when the people clamored for change.
These leaders who included MlA Parminder Singh Pinki, MlA Om Parkash Soni, MlA Karan Brar, MlA Ajit Inder Singh Mofar, MlA Bharat Bhushan Ashu, MlA Sangat Singh Gilzian, MlA Randip Singh Nabha among others said the need of the hour was to strengthen the hands of the Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi.
They said the party was wiped out in Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Rajasthan, Delhi and Uttarakhand while could manage only one seat in neighbouring Haryana. Comparatively, Punjab had scored better, despite AAP.