As a cornered Bharatiya JanataParty (BJP), which has failed to muster candidates to contest on even 50% ofthe civic body seats in the state, tried pathetically to shift blame for thefarmers’ wrath on the Congress, Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh onTuesday said Punjab would prove to be the party’s nemesis.
The BJP should start preparingitself for political oblivion, said the Chief Minister, adding that the party’sfate is now sealed, not just in Punjab but also at the Centre, where itsdespotic rule is all set to end. “The Farm Laws will spell the death-knell forthis repressive, despotic and autocratic party. For nearly 7 years they havetrampled over human rights, as well as the dignity and aspirations of Indiansin every possible way, and now it is the people’s turn,” said CaptainAmarinder.
If the so-called urban partycould not find candidates to field in more than half of the state’s civic bodyseats, one can only imagine what they will face in rural Punjab if they everdecide to contest there, said the Chief Minister. “What you see on the roads,and which you allege to be the Congress handiwork, is the spontaneous angertriggered among farmers by your arrogant anti-farmer attitude,” he said,rejecting as `hilarious’ Punjab BJP’s claims that the protestors it is facingon its campaign trail for the upcoming municipal polls are not farmers butCongress workers.
“Did you really think you couldget away with abusing the farmers, and violating their democratic andConstitutional rights, as you have been doing for the past so many months,without any consequences,” the Chief Minister asked BJP’s Punjableadership. It was unfortunate that evennow, the power-drunk BJP was refusing to look the truth in the eye, and wastaking refuge in nonsensical excuses to hide its own shocking failure toaddress the concerns of the farmers, he added. No political leadership anywherein the world has ever survived for long by ignoring the interests of its owncitizens, and the BJP scripted its own destiny in the shape of those draconianFarm Laws, he added.
“You (BJP), along with yourallies and ex-allies like the Akalis, conspired to snatch the last morsel offood from those very farmers who keep you well-fed and satiated. And now youwant these farmers to welcome you with garlands of flowers?’” quipped CaptainAmarinder. Naturally, the farmers are angry with the BJP and are looking forevery opportunity to vent their anger on their leaders, he said, adding thatwere it not for the excessive police deployment during the visits of theseleaders, things could have really got out of hand. Given the threat perceptiondue to the farmers’ ire against the BJP, Punjab Police is deployingunprecedented number of personnel wherever their leaders are going forcampaigning, he said, adding that senior police officers are themselves supervisingthe arrangements.
Scorning BJP’s charge of thepolice being mute spectators while they are being stopped from enteringconstituencies for electioneering, the Chief Minister said this was ridiculousin the extreme, considering that the protestors themselves were complaining ofbeing subjected to lathi-charge by the police. In any case, had that been thecase, BJP’s ML Khattar, who controls the government and the police in Haryana,would not have faced similar protests at his meeting venue, he pointed out.“The fact is that not only the Punjab Police but also the Election Commission(EC), to whom you keep running with your fabricated and frivolous complaints,are doing their job sincerely,” he said, adding that the BJP’s panic andfrustration is showing in their lies and unfounded allegations.
The BJP’s desperation to blameeveryone but itself for the mess it is in indicates how badly it is set to losenot just these civic polls but also the 2022 Punjab assembly elections, saidthe Chief Minister. To the party leadership’s assertion that it will spring asurprise in Punjab in the Assembly polls, he remarked with sarcasm: “Yes, therewill be a big surprise in 2022, with BJP’s very existence being wiped out fromour soil.”