Former Punjab Chief Minister and Congress candidate from Amritsar Capt Amarinder Singh today had a dig at BJP candidate Arun Jaitley for buying a house worth Rs one crore in the city and publicising the purchase with sole political purpose. “Buying a luxurious house does not win you an election, only winning the people’s hearts will do”, he remarked, while adding, “this is too little and too late for Mr Jaitley to fight the tag of an outsider”.Replying to a question on the issue during his visit to the Jallianwala Bagh, where he had gone to pay homage to the martyrs today, Capt Amarinder disclosed, he will be bringing this purchase to the attention of the Election Commission of India so that this is included in Mr Jaitley’s election expenditure.He argued, “this house has been purchased by Mr Jaitely with the sole purpose of convincing people here that he be considered to be a local resident which means he has done it with the purpose of winning the election that makes it a clear case of election expense”. He added, even Mr Jaitley has himself admitted that he had bought this house since he was being considered as an outsider.
Asserting that it was just a poll gimmick by the BJP candidate, Capt Amarinder asked him, “you have been a member of parliament from Gujarat for last 14 years how come you never felt a need to buy a house there while you have bought a house here before the elections”. He said, Mr Jaitley was being insincere at least to the people of one state either Gujarat, from where he remained an MP for last 14 years and still is or the people of Punjab from where he aspires to be an MP now”.“Anyway it is good that he has purchased a house here in Amritsar which he will never need to live in, but in any case after the elections if he wishes he can certainly rent it out to me as I will need one here”, he remarked in a lighter vein to a question whether he also intended to buy a house here. “Better to live in the people’s hearts than to purchase a house to make a political statement, which people are not going to buy”, he remarked.Capt Amarinder questions Jaitley’s rapid growth in wealthCapt Amarinder also questioned the unexplained rapid growth in Jaitley’s wealth between 2006 and 2012. He said, in 2006 in his affidavit while filing the nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha election from Gujarat he mentioned his wealth to be Rs 26 crore and in 2012 it turned out to be 158 crores. He said, this was despite the fact that he had given up his legal practice in 2009 and his only source of income was his salary as the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha. “Will he explain it please?” Capt Amarinder asked.