Hitting out at Narendra Modi over his 'independent soldier' jibe today, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh accused the prime minister of trying to create a wedge between him and the Congress leadership.
Modi, while addressing party workers at the BJP headquarters in Delhi after the poll results of three northeastern states, said "In Punjab, the Congress does not consider the chief minister as its own, as he marches on like an independent soldier.?
Dismissing the remark as 'frivolous and unsubstantiated', Singh said the prime minister's comment was part of the BJP's "futile" attempt to create a wedge between him and the Congress high command ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
"Who told you that Narendra Modi ji? Not me for sure. Did the Congress high command complain to you against me?
"Anyways, let me make it clear that such frivolous statements won?t help you create a wedge between me and my party, which has full faith in my leadership and vice versa," he said on Twitter.
Questioning the source of Modi's "information", he said, "I don't remember complaining to him against the Congress high command. Did the high command go and complain to him against me?."
"One really fails to understand what prompted Modi?s ill-conceived and unfounded remark," he asked.
The chief minister said that neither he nor the Congress high command needed the prime minister's advice on how to manage their internal relations.
"I know my business and I know how to run my state and manage my relationship with my party high command, which is more than one can say about the BJP leaders," he said.
Singh said that the Congress high command had full faith in his leadership and had given him a free hand to bring Punjab out of the mess into which the BJP, in alliance with SAD, had put the state.
As a loyal soldier of the Congress, which has a deep-rooted connect with the people across every state, the chief minister said he was leading it in Punjab in a truly democratic manner, as becoming of a party of the stature of the Indian National Congress, and as guided by the high command.
Contrary to what Modi would like to believe, the Congress is not a fly-by-night party which he could simply wish away, Singh said.
Declaring his party?s complete readiness, under the leadership of its president Rahul Gandhi, to take on the BJP in the parliamentary elections next year, he said, ?And I am personally set to take this battle to the finish, Modi."
The chief minister said that the Modis "jumlebaazi" (gimmicks) would not have any impact on either the Congress leadership, party workers, or citizens of the country.
