Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu on Friday said the alleged breach of the Prime Minister’s security is a conspiracy to defame Punjab and to save humiliation of the PM addressing empty chairs at the Bharatiya Janata Party’s scheduled rally at Ferozepur.

In a statement, Sidhu alleged the PM wanted to hide behind BJP’s failure of not gathering enough people at its Ferozepur rally. He said the BJP did not bother about the security of farmers who had been sitting at Delhi borders for over a year and 700 died in the agitation. “Now he (PM) is creating a security threat drama for himself,” said Sidhu adding with elections in mind, the BJP has created the issue to divert attention from voters’ issues of Punjab.

The Congress leader said Punjab and its people are appalled by the cynical take of the PM’s Office on the alleged security breach of PM Narendra Modi’s visit.

“Despite the dedicated services of the state of Punjab to the country and its Prime Minister, it is absolutely unfortunate that in a democratic country such as ours, BJP is using the PM office for political agenda,” he added.

Sidhu said to term the alleged security lapse, as a national threat to defame Punjab is unfortunate. “The real motive was to find a reason for the PM to miss the rally and to save from the humiliation of addressing 500 people on 70000 chairs.

The Congress Party condemns such kind of politically motivated false propagandas and believes that a facade like this only belittles the sacrifices of Punjabi who have devoted their lives to build this great nation,” he added.

Sidhu said the people of Punjab see the reality behind these false allegations made by BJP. “It is because BJP has lost Punjab already and therefore it wanted to create fake agendas and deliberate nationalism and wanted to divert from the real issues of inflation, employment, and farmers,” he added.

The security lapse is a collective responsibility of the Central agencies and home ministry and the SPG rule book is followed strictly. The onus is being shifted to the poor farmers by defaming them and making wrongful allegations against them, Sidhu said.

“The office of the Prime Minister is an institution and millions of Punjabi’s have laid down their lives to protect it. The people of Punjab and Congress party workers will fight until their last breath to protect the institution. More Punjabis have laid down their lives and have returned to their homes and villages wrapped in tricolour, than the number of times that BJP, Sangh and its workers have hoisted the national flag,” he added.