Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh today alleged that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal has joined the farmers’ agitation against the Centre’s controversial new agriculture laws to draw political mileage from the stir ahead of the 2022 Punjab Assembly polls.

“You (Kejriwal) just joined agitating farmers cursorily to score brownie points while you and your party is remotely concerned about their woes. Had you a bit of concern for the beleaguered farmers, your party should have held demonstrations against the Central government especially in Delhi itself,” Capt Amarinder said.

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Asking the Delhi CM “not to change colours like a chameleon”, the Punjab CM said the people of Punjab have been “with farmers from the core of their heart” and have “wisely visualised the devious game of Kejriwal who is out to draw political mileage from the farmers stir”.

“Just wait and watch, it is a writing on the wall, you and your party (bunch of sycophants) would be decimated from the political scene of Punjab, probably the process has already been set in,” Capt Amarinder claimed.

He dared Kejriwal to come clean on his “dubious stand” on the “draconian farm laws, which were earlier notified by his government earlier and now he is shedding crocodile tears over this sensitive issue by showing fake sympathy with the farmers, which is nothing but sheer theatrics on Kejriwal’s part”.

Ridiculing the allegations levelled by the AAP leader as “absolutely baseless, politically motivated and erroneous” that he had recently met Union home minister Amit Shah with regard to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) cases thrust upon his family, Capt Amarinder lambasted the AAP for “attempting to unleash a campaign based on lies and deceit” on the matter.

He said there was no case filed by the ED against him. There was, however, a case filed by the ED against his son, Raninder Singh, which has been going on for more than a decade and “that too under FEMA which at most is a civil or fiscal matter”.

The Punjab CM charged that only a “political novice and no do-gooder” like Kejriwal could jump to such conclusions whereas the real picture was “starkly different” from what was being painted by his Delhi counterpart who, he added, should not cross the limits of decency.

Capt Amarinder and Kejriwal have been locked in a war of words for the past several weeks, with each of them questioning the other’s support and solidarity for the protesting farmers camping at Delhi borders for nearly four weeks now as part of their stir against the Narendra Modiled BJP government’s contentious farm laws.

On his part, Kejriwal has rejected Capt Amarinder’s allegations against him while launching a counter-attack on the latter for having allegedly “struck a deal with the Centre” after “coming under pressure” from a central agency like the ED, which seemed to have turn the heat on his family again.