Upping the ante against the Akalis led by Sukhbir Badal two days before polling, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh said the SAD president’s remarks that the families of the perpetrators of the sacrilege cases would be destroyed would turn on the Badal family.“They were the ones behind the desecrations and Sukhbir’s own family would suffer the consequences,” he said towards the culmination of his high-pitch campaign for the Lok Sabha elections. If the Akalis leaders had not been involved, why did they go to Sri Darbar Sahib to apologise and do `kar seva’, he asked.He was addressing a massive public rally in Tripuri Town in favour of his wife and Congress candidate from Patiala, Preneet Kaur, after campaigning for the party’s Anandpur Sahib candidate Manish Tewari in Kharar this evening.Lashing out at the Badals for their attempts to divide the people on communal lines and for misusing and insulting the Akal Takht, the highest temporal seat of the Sikhs, to further their political interests, Captain Amarinder said the Bargari and other incidents of sacrilege were among the long list of their sins, and they would have to pay for it.
The Chief Minister also hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for playing the divisive card in a desperate bid to stay in power at the cost of the nation’s secular character. What Modi is preaching is not nationalism, he said, asserting that nationalism if all about security for all all, including the minorities.“Who is Modi to teach nationalism to us, Punjabis? Punjab has sacrificed the most for the country’s freedom, and thereafter,” said Captain Amarinder, citing the martyrdom of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Shaheed Udham Singh, Sukhdev and and the tens of thousands of other soldiers who died anonymously, many of them in Kala Paani, where they were thrown by the British. They were real nationalists who laid down their lives for the nation’s unity and integrity, which remained the ethos of the Congress philosophy, he added.Had Modi focused on industrialisation and employment generation, instead of divisiveness, the national economy would not be in such a pathetic state today, said the Chief Minister, asserting that only the Congress could defeat Modi and his divisive agenda. The future of India and its people was at stake, he warned.
Describing the Modi rule as complete failure, Captain Amarinder said “they have ruined the country and have nothing to showcase as the achievements of their five years in power.”Preneet also came down heavily on Modi and his anti-people policies, including demonetisation and GST, saying the BJP-led government at the Centre needed to be ousted to protect the nation and its interests.Earlier, in Kharar, the Chief Minister said Kandi would be developed by his government as an industrial built and electric fencing would be done along the area to prevent animals from entering the fields of the farmers and destroying the crops. He also underlined the need for judicious water use and planning to save this precious resource to check the degradation of Punjab into a desert.He assured the people of Kharar their demand for a stadium, a best stand and a hospital would be met. His government, said Captain Amarinder wanted to promote sports in a big way to wean youth away from vices and planned to start inter village and blocks sports competitions.Appealing to the people to vote for Manish, the Chief Minister described him as a dynamic and empathetic leader who will take up their cause effective in Parliament.