BJP chief Amit Shah defers Amritsar rally - BJP CITES DELHI POLLS AS REASON, CONGRESS TAKES IT OTHERWISE
Tuesday, 13/01/2015
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Chandigarh : A day after Congress Deputy Leader in Lok Sabha Captain Amarinder Singh announced to launch party’s state-wide campaign against drugs from Amritsar on January 22, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president Amit Shah on Monday deferred his earlier scheduled anti-drugs rally in Amritsar on January 22.
Though the saffron party cited the February 7 Delhi Assembly elections, which were announced on Monday as the reason behind Shah’s inability to make it to Amritsar on January 22, Amarinder was buoyed over the development and was quick to claim it as his victory.
“With the announcement of Assembly elections in Delhi, the proposed anti-drugs awareness rally of the BJP has been postponed. BJP national president Amit Shah was to address the rally in Amritsar finalised for January 22,” Punjab BJP president Kamal Sharma said in Chandigarh on Monday.
He said, “Because of the Assembly polls in Delhi, the drive has been postponed till further announcement”.
He informed that since the Delhi elections were very crucial and the duties of the Punjab BJP leaders will be assigned for the poll campaign, the anti-drugs awareness drive has been postponed as well.
Though the BJP has not yet given any indication, it is learnt that the saffron party’s much-hyped campaign against drugs in Punjab could only see the light of the day after February 10.
Reiterating that the Congress rally will be held as scheduled, former chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh that the Amritsar rally will be the first in a series of rallies to be organised state-wide in the coming months.
Capt claims victory
Chandigarh: Elated over BJP’s announcement, Captain Amarinder Singh, who represents Amritsar in Lok Sabha, said, “The Congress rally at Amritsar will be held as scheduled on January 22 even though the Bharatiya Janata Party has cancelled its rally and ran away”.
“Once bitten twice shy,” Amarinder remarked, while maintaining that having bitten the dust in the parliamentary elections in Amritsar, the BJP had clearly opted to be wiser this time by walking out of the contest. Amarinder had defeated BJP top gun and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley by over 1 lakh votes in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls from Amritsar.
