Capt slams Cong leaders for spreading ‘preposterous lies’
CHANDIGARH: The ongoing crisis in the Congress party’s Punjab unit continued to spiral on Saturday as former chief minister Amarinder Singh fired a fresh salvo at senior Congress leaders for what he called “preposterous lies being floated by party leaders in a clear bid to cover up their mishandling” of the turmoil in the party.
His remarks came hours after Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala said that 78 of the 79 Punjab Congress MLAS wrote to the party’s central leadership, seeking Singh’s ouster. On Friday, the Congress’s Punjab incharge Harish Rawat said that 43 MLAS had written to the high command, expressing lack of confidence in Singh.
Hitting back, Singh pointed to the “conflicting” numbers shared by Rawat and Surjewala about the “purported” letter, and termed it “a comedy of errors”.
“It seems the entire party has become imbued with Navjot Singh Sidhu’s sense of comic theatrics,” Singh said, retorting, “Next they will claim that 117 MLAS wrote to them against me.” “This is the state of affairs in the party. They cannot even coordinate their lies properly,” he added, saying that a large majority of senior leaders in the Congress were completely “disenchanted” with the functioning of the party.
“These claims are the preposterous lies being floated by party leaders in a bid to cover up their mishandling of the crisis in the state,” he said.
Earlier in the day, Surjewala said that when a chief minister loses the confidence of all of his legislators, he/she should not remain in the post. “Seventy-eight out of 79 legislators (in Punjab) had written for a change of the CM. Had we not changed the CM, then you would have accused us of being a dictator...”
“Sonia Gandhi is Congress’s president and the decision on changing the chief minister in Punjab was not taken by her. As I told you 78 MLAS had written and then we changed the CM,” Surjewala added.
Singh alleged that the 43-odd MLAS who signed the said letter were “forced to do so under duress”. “It’s sad to see the way they are resorting to blatant lies to justify their wrongdoings.”
On Friday, too, a verbal clash spurred between Rawat and Singh after the former said: “Captain has been our friend in Congress since 1980. But it is very unfortunate that amid the ongoing situation in the Punjab unit, he is forwarding the theory of his humiliation by the party leadership. He was not humiliated at all... It seems he is under some pressure and doing that on someone’s provocation.”
Rawat added that the former CM lost support over his handling of the investigation into cases of sacrilege and police firing on people protesting the 2015 desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh holy book.
“Captain had promised to take stringent action against those responsible during the election campaign... However, when Congress came to power, the high court during the hearing, rejected the government’s side... This disappointed the party MLAS who said Captain as CM failed to put it strongly before the court...,” he added.
Singh, however, said Rawat publicly stated that he was satisfied by his government’s track record on 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.