Committee President Capt Amarinder Singh today predicted that Congress will be winning at least 70 seats in the coming assembly elections.
In an informal conversation with reporters at the PPA grounds here today, Capt Amarinder disclosed that there was a substantial swing of seven per cent away from Shiromani Akali Dal leading to loss of 27 seats and direct gain to the Congress. He pointed out, various surveys by independent agencies including the one recently conducted by India Today and MARG have also given Congress about 70 seats.
Asked about the reason, he said, Manpreet Badal’s People’s Party of Punjab was damaging the Akali Dal in all the 117 assembly segments which was working to great advantage of the Congress. “In fact all the 117 PPP candidates are proving to be Akali rebels and inflicting severe damage on the Akali Dal”, he remarked, while adding, Akalis are also aware of that and are now fighting only for survival.
He reiterated that Mr Parkash Singh Badal and Manpreet Badal had arrived at a secret understanding and the peace had been brokered by Mr Om Prakash Chautala and the understanding seemed to be mainly for Gidderbaha and Lambi seats.
Capt Amarinder criticized Mr Badal for his remarks about Ms Gandhi’s speech saying he (Mr Badal) should have been graceful enough to admit and acknowledge the mistakes of his government. He dared Mr Badal to prove Ms Gandhi wrong on non-utilisation of the MNREGA funds and the central support to the aata-daal scheme.
He asserted that the Akalis were now scared about the Re one per kg aata that people across the country will get once the Food Security Act already approved by the cabinet and soon to be introduced in the Parliament. He said, even for the aata-daal scheme the Akali-BJP government was getting ten thousand tons of wheat every month from the centre only.
The PCC President announced that the Congress government will set up a Vigilance Commission and the vigilance department will no longer be allowed to be used as an arm-twisting tool against the political opponents. He said, the vigilance bureau director Mr Sumedh Singh Saini was scared of it and was thus trying to help the Badals.
To a question about Mr Saini saying that he was an accused in a corruption case, Capt Amarinder said, “that hardly makes any difference and the matter of fact is that the vigilance has been helping the Akalis to provide money to the Congress rebels”.
Replying to a question about Mr Badal’s criticism of the functioning of the Election Commission of India, Capt Amarinder remarked, “it was an attempt at arm-twisting the commission officials in Punjab which is a characteristic habit of Badals”. He said, the commission was doing a reasonably good job and nobody should feel aggrieved about it.