Farmers Movement Archive

Punjab will be your nemesis, farm laws death knell: Amarinder Singh to BJP

CHANDIGARH: Claiming that the BJP had failed to muster candidates even on 50% civic body seats in the state and tried pathetically to shift blame for the farmers’ protest on the Congress, Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Tuesday said Punjab would prove to be the party’s “nemesis”. The BJP should start preparing itself for political oblivion, said the CM, adding that the party’s fate was now sealed, not just in Punjab but also at the Centre, where its run was set to end. “The laws will spell the death-knell for this repressive, despotic and autocratic party. For nearly seven years, they have trampled over human rights, as well as dignity and aspirations of Indians in every possible way, and now it is the people’s turn,” said Amarinder. He said the BJP was an urban party, but could not find candidates to field in more than half of the state’s civic body seats. “What you see on the roads, and which you allege to be the Congress handiwork, is the spontaneous anger triggered among farmers by your arrogant anti-farmer attitude?” he said, rejecting Punjab BJP’s claims that the protesters it is facing on its campaign trail for the upcoming municipal polls are not farmers but Congress workers. Rejecting BJP’s charge of police being mute spectators while they are being stopped from entering constituencies for electioneering, the CM said this was ridiculous in the extreme, considering that the protesters themselves were complaining of being subjected to lathi-charge by the police. In any case, had that been the case, BJP’s Manohar Lal Khattar, who controls the government and police in Haryana, would not have faced similar protests at his meeting venue, he pointed out. “The fact is that not only Punjab Police, but 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 and frustration was showing in their lies and unfounded allegations. To the party leadership’s assertion that it will spring a surprise in Punjab in the assembly polls, he remarked with sarcasm: “Yes, there will be a big surprise in 2022, with BJP’s existence being wiped out from our soil.”

The Times of India

2021-02-10

Chandigarh