Deputy CM shifting blame of his failures on Cong: Captain

Sunday, 22/11/2015

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NEW DELHI: Rejecting charges that the Congress was supporting radical and anti-national forces, party’s deputy leader in the Lok Sabha Amarinder Singh on Saturday claimed that Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal was trying to shift the blame for his own failures on the Congress.

“We in the Congress do not need any lessons on patriotism and nationalism from someone like Sukhbir, whose father and chief minister Parkash Singh Badal still takes pride in having

burnt the copies of the Constitution of India during the Khalistan movement,” Amarinder said in a statement here.

Referring to the November 10 ‘Sarbat Khalsa’ held at Amritsar, Amarinder said the presence of a huge number of people there was an expression of “anger’ against the Badal government and not to support Khalistan as being projected by Sukhbir and “Khalistan protagonist” Simranjit Singh Mann together.

On Sukhbir’s claims that he had proof as to how antinational resolutions at the ‘Sarbat Khalsa’ were prepared and passed, Captain asked what was he (Sukhbir) doing as the deputy chief minister and Home Minister of the state.

“Does his responsibility finish at blaming the Congress,” he asked, adding, he should better own the moral responsibility and resign.

Amarinder claimed Sukhbir is only betraying his frustration and “congenital obsession” of blaming the Congress for their own wrongs.

“It’s natural for Sukhbir and his father to feel frustrated that when Rahul Gandhi is hailed and welcomed with open arms across Punjab while going on ‘padyatra’, the Badals can’t even dare to venture out lest people thrash them like their ministers,” he said.

The Amritsar MP said the Akalis, including chief minister Badal and Sukhbir were “unnerved” over the Congress’ popularity in the state and had now launched a “malicious and slanderous” campaign against the party and its leaders.

Amarinder pointed out that only a week ago Sukhbir said that the “ISI was behind all the trouble” in Punjab.

“Now all of a sudden he has woken up to revelations that Congress was behind all this,” he said, taunting the deputy chief minister, while making it categorically clear that the Congress is a secular and nationalist party which has laid down several sacrifices to safeguard the unity and integrity of the country.

Referring to the presence of Congress leaders at the ‘Sarbat Khalsa’, Amarinder said, it was a religious and not a political or anti-national congregation. So there was nothing wrong in anyone attending it as a Sikh, he said, as not only Congress leaders, leaders of other political parties were there as well.

Amarinder said, the very fact that Mann was not allowed to speak at the ‘Sarbat Khalsa’, which Sukhbir claims to be an “anti-national show”, makes it clear beyond any doubt as what people wanted there.

“Had it really been a pro-Khalistan congregation and not an anti-Badal show, why should a Khalistan proponent like Mann not be allowed to speak there,” he asked.