Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has ridiculed the Bharatiya Janata Party’s desperate efforts to promote ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’ just ahead of the Lok Sabha elections as a political stunt aimed at demeaning the Congress, which was riding a wave of success as manifest in its recent victories in several state elections.The Chief Minister, in a statement issued here on Sunday, described the BJP’s attempt to use the movie, which seeks to project Dr Manmohan Singh as a weak and docile prime minister, as not only childish but brazenly politically motivated.The use of the movie’s recently released trailer by the BJP, which was tweeted from the party’s official twitter handle and promoted by many of its leaders on the social media, to criticize Dr Singh at this important political juncture in India’s journey clearly showed their desperation and frustration in the face of their imminent defeat in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, said the Chief Minister. Lambasting the BJP for resorting to cheap politics to strengthen their electoral chances, the Chief Minister asked them to accept the harsh reality that they had lost the support of the people, which they could not earn back by indulging in such petty political tactics. Even the worst critics of Dr. Singh could not find fault with him and the BJP was merely using the movie, slated to release next month, as a pawn in a futile attempt to undermine the Congress in view of the upcoming parliamentary elections, he added.
Having known Dr Singh and having met him on several occasions while he was prime minister, the Chief Minister said he found the great economist to be an independent thinker and decision maker, who had created a niche for himself as one of India’s most intelligent and visionary leaders. He was personally witness to the total independence Dr. Manmohan Singh had received from then Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who did not believe in interfering in government matters, said Captain Amarinder Singh.Unlike the BJP, the Congress believed in allowing its leaders and members to run their own affairs as they deemed fit, said the Chief Minister, adding that this was particularly true in the case of Dr. Singh, whose elevation to prime ministership was in itself an indication that the party had complete faith in his abilities and capabilities. As a Congress chief minister, Captain Amarinder Singh said he himself had total freedom to function as he desired, in the best interest of Punjab – a clear endorsement of the fact that the party followed a policy of non-interference in these matters.Far from being a puppet dancing to the strings of the party leadership, as was being projected by the movie and the book on which it was based, Dr Manmohan Singh was a world-class leader in his own right. The nation will forever remain indebted to the former prime minister for leading it to new heights of global eminence through his far-reaching decisions. If India became a global economic superpower, the credit went to Dr Singh, said Captain Amarinder Singh.Having pulled the nation down from its elevated global position for political gains, the BJP-led opposition was now trying desperately to hide its own failures through its canards on various issues, including promotion of blatant falsehoods about one of India’s greatest prime ministers, the Chief Minister further said.Captain Amarinder Singh said the kind of respect that Dr. Manmohan Singh had earned not just on the national front but also in the global arena indicated the distinctive role played by the former prime minister on all fronts.