Chandigarh, February 9:
As a cornered Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has failed to muster candidates to contest on even 50% of the civic body seats in the state, tried pathetically to shift blame for the farmers’ wrath on the Congress, Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Tuesday said Punjab would prove to be the party’s nemesis.
The BJP should start preparing itself for political oblivion, said the Chief Minister, adding that the party’s fate is now sealed, not just in Punjab but also at the Centre, where its despotic rule is all set to end. “The Farm Laws will spell the death-knell for this repressive, despotic and autocratic party. For nearly 7 years they have trampled over human rights, as well as the dignity and aspirations of Indians in every possible way, and now it is the people’s turn,” said Captain Amarinder.
If the so-called urban party could not find candidates to field in more than half of the state’s civic body seats, one can only imagine what they will face in rural Punjab if they ever decide to contest there, said the Chief Minister. “What you see on the roads, and which you allege to be the Congress handiwork, is the spontaneous anger triggered among farmers by your arrogant anti-farmer attitude,” he said, rejecting as `hilarious’ Punjab BJP’s claims that the protestors it is facing on its campaign trail for the upcoming municipal polls are not farmers but Congress workers.
“Did you really think you could get away with abusing the farmers, and violating their democratic and Constitutional rights, as you have been doing for the past so many months, without any consequences,” the Chief Minister asked BJP’s Punjab leadership. It was unfortunate that even now, the power-drunk BJP was refusing to look the truth in the eye, and was taking refuge in nonsensical excuses to hide its own shocking failure to address the concerns of the farmers, he added. No political leadership anywhere in the world has ever survived for long by ignoring the interests of its own citizens, and the BJP scripted its own destiny in the shape of those draconian Farm Laws, he added.
“You (BJP), along with your allies and ex-allies like the Akalis, conspired to snatch the last morsel of food from those very farmers who keep you well-fed and satiated. And now you want these farmers to welcome you with garlands of flowers?’” quipped Captain Amarinder. Naturally, the farmers are angry with the BJP and are looking for every opportunity to vent their anger on their leaders, he said, adding that were it not for the excessive police deployment during the visits of these leaders, things could have really got out of hand. Given the threat perception due to the farmers’ ire against the BJP, Punjab Police is deploying unprecedented number of personnel wherever their leaders are going for campaigning, he said, adding that senior police officers are themselves supervising the arrangements.
Scorning BJP’s charge of the police being mute spectators while they are being stopped from entering constituencies for electioneering, the Chief Minister said this was ridiculous in the extreme, considering that the protestors themselves were complaining of being subjected to lathi-charge by the police. In any case, had that been the case, BJP’s ML Khattar, who controls the government and the police in Haryana, would not have faced similar protests at his meeting venue, he pointed out. “The fact is that not only the Punjab Police but also the Election Commission (EC), to whom you keep running with your fabricated and frivolous complaints, are doing their job sincerely,” he said, adding that the BJP’s panic and frustration is showing in their lies and unfounded allegations.
The BJP’s desperation to blame everyone but itself for the mess it is in indicates how badly it is set to lose not just these civic polls but also the 2022 Punjab assembly elections, said the Chief Minister. To the party leadership’s assertion that it will spring a surprise in Punjab in the Assembly polls, he remarked with sarcasm: “Yes, there will be a big surprise in 2022, with BJP’s very existence being wiped out from our soil.”
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