The Chief Minister of Punjab, Captain Amarinder Singh, on Thursday lashed out at State BJP President Ashwani Sharma, saying that he was spreading false propaganda to further his party’s political agenda. The Punjab Chief Minister said that Ashwani Sharma’s desperate attempts to falsely project a law and order problem in Punjab reflected the BJP’s fear of complete annihilation in the upcoming civic polls.
Interacting informally with mediapersons after dedicating the Chandigarh-Kharar elevated corridor to citizens, the Chief Minister said the state BJP’s request to the Governor for postponement of the civic polls on the baseless grounds of a law and order situation collapse showed that the party leadership was in complete panic at the prospect of facing elections at a time when the people were angry at them over the new farm laws.
Faced with the wrath of the people of Punjab, Ashwani and his party colleagues were now resorting to desperate measures to wriggle out of the polls, he said. Pointing out that Punjab had been voted as the No. 1 state in India on the law and order front in the ‘States of State’ annual survey conducted by a media group, the Chief Minister said that the bogey of law and order problems in Punjab was being created by the BJP only to save itself from the anger of the farmers. Their frustration was evident from their bid to pass off pictures of his old meetings with some corporate leaders as collusion against the farmers, he added.
Dismissing the ‘atrocious’ BJP state leadership’s charges that the Congress was responsible for the damage to mobile towers and the resultant loss of studies for students, the Chief Minister asked, “Are we responsible for the farmers’ angst against the BJP? We were not the ones who enacted the Farm Laws, it was the BJP-led Central Government. We, in fact, negated them by passing the amendment bills in the Assembly.”
Noting that the number of such incidents had come down drastically following his appeals and the strict warning to those damaging property, Captain Amarinder said this clearly exposed the lies being shamelessly mouthed by Sharma. Only a couple of incidents of minor damage were reported on Thursday, he said, adding that his government would ensure that not a single case of damage takes place in the coming days. “The situation is now under control, with most of the damaged towers already repaired,” he added.
“While these incidents were unfortunate, the fact was that these were happening as a result of the spontaneous outburst of farmers as their genuine demands had not been conceded so far,” said the Chief Minister, trashing Punjab BJP leaders’ claims that the Government of India had accepted the demands of the farmers from the outset. Had their demands been conceded, the farmers would not have been sitting out in the winter chill at Delhi’s borders, the Punjab CM said, adding that the power-hungry BJP leaders had remained untouched even by the fact that some 50 protesting farmers had died, including some by suicide.
When asked to comment on the acceptance of two of the key demands of the agitating farmers by the Centre at their last round of meetings, Captain Amarinder Singh said that the issue was now between the farmers and the Government of India. He hoped the Centre would soon accede to the remaining demands of the farmers too.
Replying to a question regarding the local bodies elections in the state, the Chief Minister said that the process is already underway and the dates would be finalized and announced soon as, constitutionally, the government is bound to hold these elections before February 15, 2021.