Badals running around like scared rabbits with no hole to hide: Amarinder

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh Friday compared the Badals, who lead the opposition Shiromani Akali Dal, to scared rabbits with no hole to hide as they face an imminent defeat in next year's Lok Sabha polls.

Singh was reacting to SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal's remark Thursday that the recent loan waivers announced by the Congress governments in three states were a farce.

The chief minister said Badal's comments, at an Akali Dal party workers' meeting in Fazilka, were theatrics.

In an apparent reference to Sukhbir Singh Badal and his father Parkash Singh Badal, the CM said, Faced with imminent defeat in the upcoming parliamentary polls, the Badals are now running around like scared rabbits, with no hole to hide.

"If they continue with their desperate efforts to cheat the people, they will be thrown into political oblivion forever by the electorate, Singh said in a statement.

The new Congress governments in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisharh and Rajasthan announced loan waivers, promised by the party ahead of the recent assembly elections.

Earlier, Amarinder Singh's own Congress government had written off farmer loans in Punjab, but the SAD claims these form a a small proportion of the amount promised.

Singh said his government has so far disbursed Rs 3595.04 crore to 4,28,246 farmers as loan waivers.

Of this, Rs 1815.78 crore has gone to 3,17,965 marginal farmers who took loans from cooperative banks and Rs 1779.26 crore to 1,10,281 others who got them from commercial banks, he said.

The chief minister reminded that Congress president Rahul Gandhi has promised waiver of farm loans across the country if the party wins the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

It is evident that the SAD-BJP combine is scared out of their wits by the Congress leadership's promise, he said, reminding that the party had also delivered on it in the states where it won assembly polls recently.

For 10 years, the Badals did not take cognizance of the plight of the farmers and are now shedding crocodile tears for them, he added.

With the SAD completely marginalized in Punjab, and their ally, the BJP, also clearly losing political ground, the Akali chief is looking for a way out of the political alienation which the coalition is facing ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, Singh said.