‘I will throw the Badals in jail, if they are found guilty’
Captain Amarinder Singh responds to the questions sent to him by The Sunday Guardian. Q: With the Assembly elections expected to be held just about two months from now, how do you see your party’s prospects panning out in Punjab? A: There is a strong and distinct wave in favour of the Punjab Congress, which is there for all to see. The response the Congress leaders have been getting from people on the ground is remarkable, and a complete contrast to the poor show of the Akali and AAP leaders at their campaign rallies. Even the Badals and Arvind Kejriwal personally have failed to touch a chord with the people of Punjab, who can see through their election gimmicks and fraudulent claims. The open rebellion faced by both parties has also given a fillip to the Congress, which has emerged as the only stable and feasible choice for the electorate.
On the ground, too, public mood is not in favour of the Badals or Kejriwal. While Kejriwal has shown his true colours with large-scale corruption and sex scandals in his party, the Badals have been plundering the state to fill their own pockets. The state has been plunged into a web of drugs and liquor menace, with the entire economy in the stranglehold of the Badals, who have plunged Punjab into economic, agricultural and industrial chaos.
The Congress really has no competition at all in these elections. Q: Both the Akalis and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are pursuing their campaigns aggressively. Do you think they will be able to regain some of the lost ground in the weeks to the election? A: There is no ground left for them to recover and no campaign worth talking about. As I said earlier, both have failed to establish any grassroots connect with the people, who can see through their election gimmickry and their falsehoods.
As far as the Akalis are concerned, the people gave them 10 long years to prove their sincerity and commitment to the interests of Punjab. But they spent these years plundering the state and plunging it into its worst ever crisis across all fronts— economic, social, law and order. Agriculture and industry have hit an unprecedented low, Akalipatronised mafia is ruling the roost and the future generation has been ruined with drugs.
The people of Punjab have had enough of the Badals and their cronies and are not going to give them another opportunity to further destroy their lives. Mark my word, once the code of conduct is in place, the Badals and their cronies will not be allowed by the people to even enter the villages, leave alone campaign.
AAP, on the other hand, did start off well, with its lofty ideals and promises, but soon lost the script as a result of the widespread corruption and other scandals gripping senior party leaders. The rebellion spreading in the party is a clear sign of things having gone drastically wrong in Arvind Kejriwal’s party in the last two months.
In fact, neither the SAD nor the AAP have any development agenda to take forward in their campaigns and are thus reduced to indulging in baseless accusations and unfounded allegations against the Congress. Q: Do you think state-relevant issues such as drugs, unemployment, crime, atrocities against Dalits etc., have been sidelined by the demonetisation issue? A: Demonetisation, no doubt, has cast a long shadow on all other problems faced by the people. But to say that it has completely sidelined other issues would not be correct. How can the people of Punjab forget the pain, the suffering, the anguish, the atrocities, the harassment and the devastation they have been subjected to by the Badal-led government over the past 10 years?
The Badals have destroyed the future of Punjab’s youth by failing to provide them with employment and drawing them into a net of drug and liquor abuse. In the name of development, they failed to deliver on any of the promises in the past 10 years and are now trying to hastily push through all kinds of schemes and proposals in a desperate bid to woo the voters.
Can the Dalit families who have suffered at the hands of the Badals and their supporters forget the atrocities committed on them? Can the industries that have been forced to close down or flee the state under the Badal misrule forgive them for driving them to this situation?
I cannot bring back the lives of the farmers who have committed suicide due to the anti-agriculture policies of the Badals, but I can promise that not a single farmer will, in future, be pushed to such extremes. I will make sure that their debt burdens are written off as soon as my government comes to power, irrespective of whether or not their Prime Minister supports the Congress efforts to alleviate the sufferings of the farming community.
In my opinion, demonetisation will only chip further away at whatever is left of the Akali prospects of a facesaving in these elections. If they were getting 30 seats earlier, now they’ll be left with 20.
Q: Talking of issues, your stand on the SYL canal is no different from that of the Akali government, which has also been maintaining that it will not allow a single drop of water to go out of the state. Then why do you think you’ll be able to achieve what the Akalis could not do with regard to protecting the water rights of Punjab? A: It’s completely wrong to say that there’s no difference in the Congress and SAD stand on SYL. Had that been the case, the Supreme Court verdict in the matter would not have been against Punjab. The Badals failed to adequately defend Punjab’s rights in the case in the Apex Court. In fact, it was Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal who sold off Punjab’s interests to Haryana in exchange of a paltry amount. He did not think twice before signing off the state’s water rights to Haryana merely because of his personal relationship with Devi Lal, the then Chief Minister of the neighbouring state.
And all this is documented, unlike the unfounded and baseless charges he keeps making against me. So where is the similarity between our stands? It was my government which brought in the Punjab Termination of Water Agreements Act, 2004, to save the state’s water. What have the Badals done except put the people’s survival at stake? Q: You have made a lot of promises to the people of Punjab— loan waiver for the farmers, power and other incentives for the industries, job for the youth. How do you propose to meet the expenses to realise these promises? Or will they remain on paper, to be looked at once again at the time of the next elections?
A: I have never regressed on any promise. You can check the record of my previous government and see that I met every single one of the promises I had made before the elections back then. It is with all sincerity and total commitment that I have made certain promises to my people, and I will make sure that I fulfil every one of them. Funds will be budgeted accordingly, and I will ensure that every penny of the allocated funds reaches the intended beneficiary, unlike under the present government where the money earmarked for public welfare was being regularly diverted into the pockets of the Badals and their cronies.
The palatial properties and the flourishing businesses the Badals have built in the past 10 years are the real reason why they failed to deliver on any promise made to the people of Punjab before the elections. The scam- and mafia- riddled Akali government has looted public money to the tune of crores of rupees through its land, transport, media, liquor, drugs and sand mafias, which it has been openly patronising to promote its vested interests, backed by a host of scams.
I have said it earlier, and I say it again, I will take back from the Badals every single paisa of the money they have looted from the people of Punjab. And that money will go into ensuring the welfare of the people, including the fulfilment of my promises.
I will seize all the buses from the Badals’ transport companies and give them to the youth to provide them employment. I will reopen all the cases of crime and corruption in which the Badals’ complicity is evident and will bring them to book. I will throw them in jail, if they are found guilty, as I did before.
I am committed to bringing smiles back to the faces of the people of my state and I promise I will not fail.