Pathankot, June 14: Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee President Amarinder Singh today dared Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal to choose any issue and ask his father Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to debate it with him anywhere he wanted.
Reacting to Sukhbir's statement that the Congress was running away from debating issues, Amarinder asked him to choose as many issues as he can and ask his Chief Minister father to hold a debate at any place like a university and he will be there to discuss these.
“I am open for a public debate anywhere in Punjab,” he asserted.
The PCC President was talking to reporters after meeting the party workers from four assembly segments of Gurdaspur district including Deena Nagar, Pathankot, Bhoa and Sujanpur. Singh revealed that during his interaction with the workers he had found that the BJP leaders had been as “ruthless” and “vindictive” as their Akali partners. “In some cases they were worse than Akalis,” he said citing several instances.
He alleged that in one such instance Congress sarpanch Amarjeet Singh of village Behrampur had been slapped with five criminal cases just because he was with the Congress. In a separate case, he said, an ex-sarpach Darshan Singh Dalla, and currently Zila Parishad member was jailed along with his engineering student grandson for the same reason. The PCC President said the Congress workers were quite angry and wanted that the BJP leaders must be made to pay for their “sins”. The workers wanted him to promise that he will avenge each and every case of excess and atrocity against them by the BJP leaders.
He said none of the guilty will be spared and each and every culprit will be brought to book.
Replying to a question whether the Congress government will make Pathankot a district, he said the proposal can always be examined and considered.
He said the issue needs to be handled rationally as it should help in improving the administration of the place. He agreed that there were some remote areas in the sub-division and any proposal about district status can be considered.
When asked about the representation to youth and women, he said, they will get a fair share as Congress President Sonia Gandhi was quite keen to provide maximum representation to both the sections.
To another question on special package to remote areas like Pathankot, Amarinder said he had suggested to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to grant a special package to the areas falling within 30 kms of the border.
Claiming that the PM had also liked the idea, he said the Akali-BJP government did not follow it up. PTI
