Chief Minister’s Office, Kharar (Mohali), Punjab, December31: Lashing out at the State BJP President for spreading false propaganda tofurther his party’s political agenda, Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh onThursday said Ashwani Sharma’s desperate attempts to falsely project a law& order problem in Punjab reflected the party’s fear of completeannihilation in the upcoming civic polls.
Interacting informally with mediapersons after dedicatingthe Chandigarh-Kharar elevated corridor to citizens, the Chief Minister saidthe state BJP’s request to the Governor for postponement of the civic polls onthe baseless grounds of law and order situation collapse showed that the partyleadership was in complete panic at the prospect of facing the elections at atime when the people were angry at them over the black Farm Laws.
Faced with the wrath of the people of Punjab, Ashwani andhis party colleagues were now resorting to desperate measures to wriggle out ofthe polls, he said. Pointing out that Punjab had been voted as Number #1 statein India on the law and order front in the ‘States of State’ annual surveyconducted by India Today, the Chief Minister said the bogey of law and orderproblems in Punjab was being created by BJP only to save itself from the angerof the farmers. Their frustration was evident from their bid to pass offpictures of his old meetings with some corporate leaders as a collusion againstthe farmers, he added.
Dismissing as `atrocious’ BJP state leadership’s chargesthat the Congress was responsible for the damage to mobile towers, and theresultant loss of studies to the students, the Chief Minister asked, “Are weresponsible for the farmers’ angst against the BJP?” “We were not the ones whoenacted the Farm Laws, it was the BJP-led central government. We, in fact,negated them by passing the amendment Bills in the Assembly,” he added.
Noting that following his appeals and the strict warning tothose damaging property, the number of such incidents had come downdrastically, Captain Amarinder said this clearly exposed the lies beingshamelessly mouthed by Sharma. Only a couple of incidents of minor damage werereported today, he said, adding that his government would ensure that not asingle case of damage takes place in the coming days. The situation was nowunder control, with most of the damaged towers already repaired, he added.
While these incidents were unfortunate, the fact was thatthese were happening as a result of the spontaneous outburst of farmers astheir genuine demands had not been conceded so far, said the Chief Minister,trashing Punjab BJP leaders’ claims that the Government of India had beenaccepted the demands of the farmers from the outset. Had their demands beenconceded, the farmers would not have been sitting out in the winter chill atDelhi’s borders, he said, adding that the power-hungry BJP leaders had remaineduntouched even by the fact that some 50 protesting farmers had died, includingsome by suicide.
Asked to comment on the acceptance of two of the key demandsof the agitating farmers by the Centre at their last round of meeting, CaptainAmarinder Singh said that the issue was now between the farmers and theGovernment of India. He hoped the Centre would soon accede the remainingdemands of the farmers too.
Replying to a question regarding Local Bodies elections inthe state, the Chief Minister said that the process is already under way andthe dates would be finalized and announced soon, as Constitutionally, theGovernment was bound to hold these elections before February 15, 2021.