EX-CM hits back, says Cong in pathetic state in Punjab

CHANDIGARH : Taking exception to Harish Rawat’s no-holds barred attack against him, former CM Captain Amarinder Singh on Friday rejected the Congress Punjab in-charge’s “outrageous“claims and allegations, which, he said, were prompted by the pathetic situation the party now finds itself in the state after being on a winning spree for four and a half years.

Amarinder said that three weeks before stepping down as CM, he had offered his resignation to (Congress president) Sonia Gandhi but she had asked me to continue. The humiliating manner in which he was pushed into resigning just hours before the CLP meeting, that was clearly convened to oust him, was a matter of public record, he said.

“The world saw the humiliation and the insult heaped on me, and yet Rawat is making claims to the contrary,” the two-time former chief minister remarked, adding “If this was not humiliation then what was it?”

He said that Rawat should put himself in his (Capt’s) shoes, and then, perhaps, he would realise how insulting the entire affair was. The former CM recalled that Rawat himself had publicly stated after meeting him that he was satisfied by his government’s track record on the 2017 poll promises.

“So how can he now claim that the party leadership was dissatisfied with me, and if they were, then why did he deliberately keep me in the dark all this time,” he asked.

Ridiculing Rawat’s remarks that he (Amarinder) seemed to be under pressure, the former CM said the only pressure he had been under for the past few months was that of his own loyalty to the Congress.