Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh on Saturday hit back Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president, Sukhbir Singh Badal saying that the statement against him was ‘utter buffoonery’ adding that he was ‘neither spineless nor a traitor like Badals.’
Punjab CM Amarinder Singh statement comes as a reaction to SAD leader Sukhbir Badal’s remarks on ED cases against his family.
“The Badals, who were totally cornered over their betrayal of the farmers, had clearly pressed all the panic buttons in their desperation to cover up their brazen treachery,” said Amarinder Singh.
In a statement, the SAD chief charged that Punjab CM Capt Amarinder had been summoned by Union home minister Amit Shah to Delhi recently to be told to choose between facing the Enforcement Directorate (ED) probe and ‘betraying’ the farmers, who have been agitating against the Centre’s controversial farm laws in and around the national capital for several days.
“The choice he (Amarinder) made became clear with the first thing he said as soon as he came out of the meeting with Amit Shah (Union home minister) telling the farmers to end their agitation, citing dangers to national security from this peaceful movement,” Badal claimed.
Referring to Amarinder’s “shocking references” to dangers to national security from the farmers’ movement, the SAD president said, “The brave Amarinder merely recited the script given to him by the BJP High Command. He sang it like a parrot.”
He charged that Capt Amarinder’s “cowardly surrender” before the ED and Shah may surprise those who take his “hollow bluster and boastfulness” seriously.
Badal said, “The fact is that this surrender is nothing new and it is so total and shameless that even an ordinary tehsil-level BJP worker in Punjab can simply barge into Captain’s official and personal bungalows and order him about to get routine things done, while senior Congress leaders and ministers dare not even breathe loudly within 500 yards of his house. Like all bullies, Amarinder is a coward at heart and only needs a bigger bully to expose this cowardice.”
Punjab CM Singh reacting to these stamens made by SAD chief said, “Such is their level of despair that Sukhbir even stooped to undermining the Pakistani threat to the security of Punjab and the nation,”
He further added, “Have you and your Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) become so power-hungry that you have even closed your eyes to the threat posed by the Pakistanis to our security? Are you saying that all those arms, ammunition and drones our brave security forces have captured along the Punjab border are no danger?
The chief minister while adding that it seemed that SAD leader Badal had totally ‘lost’ it said that there was no new ED case against him.