Former Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh today lashed out at the Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and the Deputy Chief Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa for behaving like cowards by running away from their responsibilities.Addressing a public meeting after inducting senior Congress leader Surinder Singh Kherki into the party here today, Capt Amarinder said, “there was a grave security lapse and the Chief Minister Channi and the Deputy Chief Minister Randhawa, who heads the Home department, should own the responsibility”.He said, true leaders own up responsibilities and do not pass the buck on others. “This is no leadership, it is cowardice”, he said while referring to the CM and the Deputy CM trying to shift blame on others over the grave security lapse during the PM's visit to Ferozepur yesterday.He criticized the Chief Minister Channi for not receiving the Prime Minister personally at Bathinda airport.
Capt Amarinder also appealed to the farmers that they should stop blocking roads and railway tracks now and instead focus on what is in their interests and that of Punjab and he will support them like he did in the past. “I supported the farmers when they were staging dharna at Tikri and Singhu borders and not only that, those farmers who died during the protest, I paid Rs five lakh each to their families and one government job”, he pointed out.The former Chief Minister regretted that Punjab had suffered a loss in image over yesterday’s incident. “Whole world was watching that the Punjab government failed to provide safe and secure passage to the Prime Minister to launch various development projects”, he said, while adding, it was Punjab’s loss on other fronts also as the PM was supposed to inaugurate projects worth Rs 43,000 crores, which included few hospitals and roads and which have not got delayed.
Capt Amarinder appealed to the people to vote cautiously and carefully and not get carried away by the unrealistic promises made by people like Arvind Kejriwal and Navjot Singh Sidhu. He said, while Kejriwal was promising Rs 1000 per month to every woman, Sidhu was promising Rs 2000. He said, even if only Rs 1000 was paid to all women of Punjab every month, the state will need about one lakh twenty thousand crores for this purpose only as the total population of women in the state is about one crore. “And do you think it is financially feasible when Punjab is under a debt of about Rs five lakh crores?” he asked.He said, the PLC, the BJP and the Shirmani Akali Dal-Sanyukt will form the next government as people wanted change. He said, these elections were for the security of the country and the state. And till the state is not secure and peaceful, there cannot be any progress. “It is important to have peace for progress and prosperity not for today but for our future generations also”, he remarked.