A day after the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Punjab unit president Ashwini Sharma was attacked by a group of unidentified persons, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Wednesday slammed the BJP for the party’s “provocative and inflammatory actions aimed at disturbing the state’s law and order“ following the attack.

Slamming Sharma’s rabble-rousing statements and baseless accusations against the ruling Congress, the CM said the BJP’s Punjab unit chief seemed bent on spreading “false propaganda“ to promote the interests of his party.

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These actions were clearly aimed at diverting the attention of the people from the farmers’ angst against the BJP over the farm laws, he said adding the police has already identified several farmer union members as being responsible for the attack on Sharma.

The CM asserted that the people of Punjab, including the farmers, will not be misled by these irresponsible and instigatory statements and actions, which the BJP’s Punjab leadership was resorting to with total lack of concern about the possible aggravation of the Covid pandemic it could lead to in the state. ?

The farmers, said Amarinder, were angry and anguished at the farm laws enacted by the BJP-led Central government, and instead of empathising with them and conveying their pain to the high command, the BJP state leadership was trying to exploit the incident of 12 October to earn political brownie points.

Contrary to the falsehoods Sharma was trying to spread, the state government had been taking all steps to ensure the security of the BJP leaders amid the farmers’ protests, he added. After the incident of 12 October, Sharma’s security had been beefed up and a total of 16 Punjab Police security personnel, including commandos, are deployed with him currently, he added.

In fact, said the CM, all BJP leaders and office-bearers in the state had been provided adequate security for the past eight to ten 10 days, since the farmers’ agitation gained momentum in the state.

Amarinder said the Director General of Police Dinkar Gupta was personally in touch with Sharma and had also directed all district police chiefs to stay connected with BJP leaders for advance information about their visits and programmes so that adequate security arrangements can be made.

The DGP said Sharma’s motorcade was confronted by around 25 protestors belonging to different farmers unions.