Take command of turmoil in Pb or retire: Amarinder to CM Badal
http://odishasamaya.com/news/india/take-command-of-turmoil-in-pb-or-retire-amarinder-to-cm-badal/64947
Chandigarh: Senior Congress leader Amarinder Singh kept up his attack on Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal asking him to either take command from the front to control the turbulent situation in the state or retire from his post.
“The Chief Minister should take responsibility. If he feels he has grown old, let him take retirement and make his son (Sukhbir) the Chief Minister. But it is not fair that you occupy the post and not accept responsibly,” Singh said.
The Congress Deputy leader in the Lok Sabha was speaking on the sidelines of the launch of his book on 1965 India- Pakistan war here last evening.
“If Badal thinks that by tendering a verbal apology, without actually meaning it, he will get away with everything then he is badly mistaken,” he said.
Asked about the allegedly worsening law and order situation in Punjab, Singh said, “Where is the Chief Minister”.
Why is he silent, why is he not coming out. It is his job. The Chief Minister should be handling the state, not the Deputy Chief Minister.
On Akali leaders facing protests from various sections and even being greeted with black flags, the former Chief Minister said, There is so much anger among the public with these Akalis that people are not going to garland them.
Congress feels that they have destroyed the State.
“The people are forced to take to the streets as they feel this government has failed and cannot stop incidents of repeated desecrations. If the Akali government cannot stop desecrations of the holy Guru Granth Sahib, then what are they there for,” Amarinder said.
“To cover up their failures the Akalis find a convenient way to shoot innocent people and point fingers at others,” he said, adding, prosecuting the leaders who attended the recent ‘Sarbat Khalsa’ was wrong.
“I am against anything like arrest. You cannot solve things with these kind of arrests. I have seen a lot. This chap, Sukhbir, was just a school boy then (during dark days of militancy). It is time to set things right, not to vitiate the atmosphere,” he said.
Though Sarbat Khalsa was a Khalistani stage, people did not assemble there for Khalistan instead they went there as they wanted things to improve, Singh said. .
