Punjab Lok Congress (PLC) chief Captain Amarinder Singh on Tuesday said the Congress had made a big mistake by announcing a CM face, as “a chief minister should be decided on grounds of capability and not on the metric of caste, be it a scheduled caste (SC), Jat or Hindu, which they had done.”

Speaking to reporters after a public meeting in Patiala, the PNC chief said Punjab was never before divided on caste or religious lines. “Charanjit Channi does not have the caliber of a chief minister and his tall claims cannot fool the people of the state,” Amarinder said.

“Channi claims he has done everything in 111 days, he’s fooling the people. Every project has a gestation period and takes months to start,” the PLC chief said, warning the people against getting carried away by such brazen lies since all the projects that Channi talks of were initiated by his (Captain Amarinder’s) government.

The former chief minister warned of an explosion soon from Navjot Singh Sidhu, who had been discarded by his own party for chief ministerial candidature in favour of Channi, saying the Punjab Congress president was too ambitious to stay quiet for long.

Pointing out that leaders like Channi and Sukhjinder Randhawa had backstabbed him and misled the Congress high command after he had supported them in their political careers, the PLC chief said these men could not be trusted.

“They will compromise the interests of Punjab to further their own,” he warned, in response to questions. He recalled how he had inducted Channi into the Congress and helped him become legislator and ensured Randhawa’s seat in the last elections.

Answering a question, the former CM said there was no comparison between the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi as far as political and public life experience goes.

He had known Modi for long and used to meet him frequently in Delhi at a time when they were both chief ministers, Amarinder said, adding that the Modi government had helped him whenever Punjab was in dire straits.

“We have to work with them to ensure a safe future for Punjab,” he stressed. “The future of Punjab depends on these polls,” he said, underlining the need for close Centre-state coordination to secure the state’s interests.

Urging the people to vote for “vikas” (which only the NDA could provide) and not “vinaash”, (which the other parties would push Punjab towards), Amarinder earlier expressed the confidence that the people of the state would look after their interests and vote accordingly.

He trashed the surveys favouring the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), saying such polls were conducted even in 2017 and had proven to be false. While he could not predict the number of seats they would get, his party in alliance with BJP and SAD (Sanyukt) was set to form the next government, the PLC chief said.