LUDHIANA, August 10: Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring today said that ‘Tiranga’, the national tricolor symbolizes everything that the idea of India represents, which makes India a strong, secular and vibrant democracy.
“It symbolizes the beauty of our multiple diversities which have made this land so beautiful”, he said in an informal interaction with reporters while participating in the “Tiranga Yatra” in Samrala today.
He questioned the ruling Aam Aadmi Party in the state for not planning and holding any special programme to mark the special occasion.
The PCC launched the five-day and 2000 km long “Tiranga Yatra” on Tuesday to mark the seventy-fifth year of the Independence of the country. The party has named it as “harr dil mein tiranga”.
Warring criticized all those who were trying to oppose the yatra. “Come what may and whatever our political differences, we cannot allow or tolerate any insult to our national tricolor”, he asserted, while at the same time criticizing the Bharatiya Janata Party for trying to make the 75th Independence Day celebrations partisan.
The PCC president said the Congress did not need any certificate from anyone about nationalism and patriotism, much less from the BJP.
He pointed out, the Congress leaders had sacrificed their lives for the freedom of the country before independence. “And even after Independence it was the Congress leaders only, who laid down their lives to safeguard the freedom, unity and integrity of the country”, he said.
Warring was accompanied by former minister Gurkirat Singh Kotli, former MLA Lakhvir Singh Lakha and party leader Raja Gill, who contested the last elections from Samrala assembly segment.
Addressing the workers before starting the yatra, the PCC president said he was awed and overwhelmed by the enthusiasm among the party’s rank and file as could be seen with their participation in the “tiranga yatra”.
He also had a dig at the ruling Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab, saying its leaders held ‘tiranga yatras’ only in election bound states like Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat. For them, like the BJP, everything stops at the elections and they forget everything the moment elections are finished, irrespective of what the results are.
He wondered why the AAP was not organizing any special programme to mark the 75 years of Independence and was just following the BJP’s official programme of installing tricolor on every house.
