Capt warns Sukhbir against violence

Amritsar, December 10
PPCC chief Capt Amarinder Singh today warned Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal against instigating people to indulge in violence during the coming elections. At the same time, he said the Election Commission was closely monitoring the situation and adequate security measures were being taken to prevent any mischief by the Akalis.
Addressing a function organised to felicitate senior Congress leader RL Bhatia here, Amarinder condemned the “collapse of the government” in the state, as the Amritsar-Jalandhar highway remained blocked due to the farmers’ protest for the fifth consecutive day today. He said the government must talk with the farmer and employee unions to resolve their issues.
Referring to Sukhbir’s recent statements “instigating people to violence”, the former CM warned, “If you try to hit the Congressmen once, they will hit you back not once, not twice but thrice… Let me tell him that the Congress workers will not tolerate violence anymore and enough is enough.”
At the same time, he made it clear that the Congress workers would not initiate any violence as they don’t need to, since they know they are winning. “But they will not take it lying down and will defend themselves,” he warned.
About Sikh memorials, the PPCC chief claimed that these were mostly incomplete and had been locked immediately after inauguration just to ensure that people do not know that they played fraud.
He pointed out that the government had failed to utilise Rs 5,000 crore provided by the Prime Minister for Amritsar’s development under Jawahar Lal National Urban Renewal Mission as it could not provide the matching grants since the money was being “squandered away by Badal in his Sangat Darshan programmes”.
Congress incharge for Punjab Gulchain Singh Charak, Congress Legislature Party leader Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, former PPCC president Shamsher Singh Dullo and Gurdaspur MP Partap Singh Bajwa were also present.

Senior Congress leaders OP Soni and Jasbir Singh Dimpa were conspicuous by their absence, which fuelled the speculations that they stayed away from the function owing to their alleged differences with Dr Rajkumar Verka, the organiser of the show.