Amarinder slams Modi over his remarks against Rajiv Gandhi

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Tuesday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his remarks on his predecessor, the late Rajiv Gandhi.

"The Prime Minister has absolutely no decency in him as he has not spared even a man who was no more and who could no longer defend himself, which was completely against India's traditional values and ethics," he said at an election meeting here.

Instead of indulging in self-praise, Modi and his BJP should think about the problems which people, especially farmers and youth, were facing, he added.

Terming as "arrogant" Akali Dal President Sukhbir Badal and his wife and Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur, Amarinder Singh made a scathing attack, in their own constituencies, on the couple who "needed to be taught a lesson in these elections for their attempts to divide the state on communal lines".

Addressing elections rallies in Sukhbir Badal's Ferozepur and Harsimat Kaur's Bathinda constituencies for Congress candidates, Shamsher Singh Ghubaya and Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, respectively, he asked the people to defeat such leaders who used Punjab and their power for promoting their own vested interests and not for the state's welfare.

Accusing the Badals of making hotels and acquiring properties at the cost of people during their tenure, Amarinder Singh said that even now, he had heard that Akali leaders were threatening people not to vote for the Congress and asked the crowd for the names of the trouble-makers.

"I know how to set them right, I know how to put the Badals in their place," he said amidst loud cheers.

"If they (Badals) and other Akali leaders like Bikram Singh Majithia think they can go around scaring people into voting for the Akali Dal, they are mistaken," said Amarinder Singh, adding that muscle power and arm-twisting does not work in a democracy.

They will all be taught a lesson in these elections, he said.

Punjab has been through bad times, which the Badals tried to further aggravate with their divisive agenda and attempts to create hatred through by allowing acts of sacrilege, he added.

While the Badals had resorted to sacrilege to try and divide Punjab, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was striving to rip apart the nation's secular fabric, the Chief Minister said, adding the BJP and their allies were out to divide India on religious lines.

Punjab will vote for the 13 Lok Sabha seats on May 19 in the last phase of the elections.

--IANS

vg/vd