Capt ridicules CM’s ‘belated awakening’ on Chandigarh
Wednesday, 29/10/2014
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PATIALA: Congress deputy leader in the Lok Sabha and Amritsar MP Capt Amarinder Singh on Tuesday took a dig at chief minister Parkash Singh Badal for “belatedly waking up” to the demand for transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab.
Amarinder, a former CM, said Badal’s comments were “only because he fears threat to the survival of his government as the BJP might withdraw its support given the treatment he (Badal) was meted out at the Haryana government swearingin ceremony”.
Asserting that the Congress stand on the issue was “clear and unambiguous” as “it was the Congress which had built Chandigarh as Punjab’s capital city”, Amarinder asked the BJP to clarify its stand on Chandigarh vis-a-vis Punjab as different leaders of the party were “raising different voices”.
“Knowing Badal well, I am sure that he will soon start saying ‘panth is in danger’, the moment he realises that the Chandigarh ploy is not working,” Amarinder said in a statement issued here.
He said Badal was only shedding “crocodile tears” now over Chandigarh as all these years he had virtually forgotten the issue. “Thanks to the Punjabi suba movement that Badal and his acolytes launched, Punjab not only lost Chandigarh but also most of its land… Having compromised on everything just to get a Sikh-majority state, Badal has woken up after 48 years seeking transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab,” he added.
As for the BJP, which now has a government in Haryana as well, Amarinder pointed out that while the Punjab BJP unit was seeking transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab, the Chandigarh unit was vigorously opposing it.
On Badal, he said the CM had “neither any credibility nor any credentials” to raise issues related to Punjab’s interests as he had “always compromised the interests of the state to serve his personal ends”. “While Badal is today trying to cry hoarse over Punjab’s waters, it was he who as the chief minister in 1977-78 accepted ` 2 crore from his Haryana counterpart, Devi Lal, for construction of the SYL (Sutlej-Yamuna Link) canal in Punjab.” Later, Amarinder added, Badal launched a movement against the construction of SYL in 1980 “just because he was out of power”.