Chandigarh, February 12:
Scorning the Aam Aadmi Party’s ambition to rule the state as a ‘pipe-dream’, Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Friday said it was ridiculous that a party that is totally faceless in Punjab should talk of having a grand CM face in the 2022 Assembly elections.
“With just a year to go for the Assembly polls, AAP could not find a face from Punjab to campaign in the municipal elections and had to drag in non-entities from Delhi for electioneering! And now they claim they’ll find a CM face that will be the pride of Punjab?”, mocked Captain Amarinder. “What can a party which sold off the farmers’ interests by implementing one of the Farm Laws in Delhi back in November know of Punjab’s `aan, baan and shaan,” the Chief Minister asked, adding that AAP neither knows nor cares what Punjabiyat is all about.
Far from learning from their mistakes of the past 5 years, AAP continues to blunder its way through Punjab, with absolutely no understanding or concern about the problems of its people, he said. “All they see here is another state to rule, another seat of power. They do not see the pain and the problems of our people,” said Captain Amarinder, adding that AAP is an outsider in Punjab and will remain so as long as it continues to be disconnected from the state’s ground realities.
The exodus of AAP leaders and members from the party’s Punjab unit over the past 2-3 years is just the tip of the iceberg; the fact is that they have no roots here, said the Chief Minister. “Arvind Kejriwal’s party has no existence outside Delhi, and will soon be wiped out from there too, given their shameless collusion with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), at whose behest they have been trying to befool the lakhs of farmers camping outside their city for more than two months now,” he further said.
The Chief Minister also termed as ludicrous and futile AAP’s persistent attempt to mislead the people with lies on the issue of the Agricultural Reforms committee set up by the Government of India. “These AAP members don’t even know that the committee that was formed, and in which Punjab was included only after I personally wrote to the Centre, was a reforms committee and not a drafting committee,” he remarked, adding that the party, in its desperation to spread lies, has lost the narrative completely.
“Show me one piece of paper to prove that the Farm Laws were even mentioned, leave alone discussed, at the two meetings of the reforms committee held after Punjab was made a member,” Captain Amarinder challenged AAP, dubbing it a party of shameless liars and cheats, with no compunction about sacrificing the truth to serve their political purpose.
Punjab neither wants nor needs such a party, said the Chief Minister, adding that “neither AAP nor its Delhi model of governance is welcome in Punjab, which is faring better than the national capital on almost every key index of development.” With every passing year, Arvind Kejriwal’s government is plunging the national capital lower down into the abyss of devastation, in sharp contrast to Punjab, which has seen unprecedented growth and development in the past 4 years, he said. Even the much-touted health model of Delhi government, which showed a decline by two positions on the Health Index from 2015 to 2019, was completely exposed during the Covid peak crisis, he pointed out, calling upon Kejriwal to focus on managing Delhi instead of wasting precious time and resources in trying to find a footing (or a face) in Punjab or other states.
What Punjab needs is solid and sincere leadership, not a party of loud-mouth liars and deceivers, he added.
