In what could blow up into a major face-off as it threatens to trigger a full-fledged political war in Punjab Congress, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Tuesday dared his bête noire and senior party colleague Navjot Singh Sidhu to contest against him from Patiala and accused him of breaching party discipline repeatedly.
In an interview to Zee Punjabi, Amarinder Singh launched a fierce attack on his former cabinet minister. “Let him clear where does he want to go. He is in the party and has been repeatedly taking direct pot shots at me. Doesn’t it indicate that he is looking at some other party as an option,” fumed Singh. “If he wants to contest against me, I am ready for it. Last elections Gen J J Singh even lost his deposit. Let him also try,’” he said in a promo telecast by the channel.
Sidhu, recently, had directly attacked the Chief Minister through twitter after the Punjab and Haryana High Court gave a clean chit to the Badals in the Kotkapura firing case and trashed the investigations carried by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) appointed by the Punjab government. Sidhu had, through his tweet, alleged a ‘cover up’ by the present dispensation that lead to the investigations being trashed by the high court.
He had also alleged that the state government had failed to file a challan against the Badals in the case accusing the chief minister of a lax probe.
The verdict has sparked off huge political row in the state with just some months left for the state assembly elections. The opposition AAP and the Akali Dal have gone to town over the issue criticising the ruling Congress government. Even within the party Amarinder Singh has been facing a huge outcry with PCC Chief Sunil Jakhar and senior minister, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, already making an offer to resign which was rejected by the CM.
And minutes after the CMs scathing attack, Sidhu again took to twitter saying, “Efforts to derail Punjab’s conscience will fail … My Soul is Punjab and Punjab’s Soul is Guru Granth Sahib Ji … Our fight is for Justice & punishing the guilty, an assembly seat is not even worth discussion in the same breathe !!”
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