Sangrur (Punjab), November 4
Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi today said that Punjab needs a government which is run from Punjab and not from Delhi. He said the reins of the Aam Aadmi Party government were in the hands of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. “One rein is in Shah’s hands and another in Kejriwal’s” he said, while addressing a massive public rally here today, as the Congress sounded the poll bugle with a completely united front with tens of thousands of people in attendance.
Addressing the rally, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said that in his over six decades long political career, he had never seen such a corrupt government as that of the AAP in Punjab.
Referring to the AAP government in the state, he said, it had promoted the drug menace, was deeply corrupt and was anti-farmer. He said, this government had destroyed the future of the youth, farmers and every section of the society.
Maintaining that people were getting devastated with drugs, Kharge asked the AAP, “is this your good governance? Did people of Punjab choose you for this? Earlier you destroyed Delhi and now you have destroyed Punjab”.
Arguing that the AAP was the B-team of the BJP, the Congress president said, wherever the Congress stood good chances of a victory, like in the states of Gujarat and Goa, the AAP jumped in to divide the anti-BJP vote and help the BJP win. “Otherwise, when you don’t have any base anywhere, what for are you fighting elections in these states?” he asked, adding that AAP was doing this only to benefit the BJP.
Speaking on the occasion, Rahul Gandhi said that the prevalence of drugs was the main issue in Punjab and the AAP government had miserably failed to control and curb it. He targeted the Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann for his failure to curb drugs.
He recalled when Mann was an MP, he would come across him in Parliament narrating jokes and appearing to be drunk even at 11 am. While drinking was the personal choice of Mann and he would not like to comment on that, he added, “You cannot fight drugs in a state whose Chief Minister gets drunk every evening”. “You need someone who can fight for Punjab and who truly feels Punjab’s pain”, he remarked amidst thundering applause from the crowd.
Reminding people of their experiences with the Congress governments in Punjab, Rahul Gandhi pointed out, the Congress governments are run from Punjab and not Delhi, unlike in the current case. Punjab needs a Chief Minister who governs independently, rather than one controlled by the Union Home Minister and a former Delhi Chief Minister, he added while referring to present situation.
Gandhi took a dig at Amit Shah’s commitment of eradicating drugs from the country by December 2029. “In three years’ time, Amit Shah will no longer be the Home Minister as my assessment is that the government will not survive beyond a year”, he said, while asking him (Shah) to tell the nation what happened to the drugs seized at the Adani’s port in Gujarat. He also questioned Shah on the issue of law and order, pointing out that the entire nation knows that he (Shah) was protecting and patronising gangsters by providing them safe haven in jails. “Don’t talk about drugs and law and order as you have no right to”, he told Shah.
Rahul Gandhi also referred to the decline of agriculture and the medium and small-scale industries in Punjab. He noted that Punjab was known for these two sectors and both were in doldrums. He said, without these two sectors of progress, you can neither fight drugs nor gangsters.
Rahul Gandhi reiterated his challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to debate who is anti-national. “Modi says, the Congress is anti-national and I have challenged him to come to place of his choice, make anyone of his choice the judge, whether Mohan Bhagwat or Adani, and debate it in the NDTV studio and I guarantee that it will take me just five minutes, not six minutes, but only five minutes to prove who actually is anti-national”. He said, all the BJP leaders were telling him (Rahul) to come and debate in Parliament. “But you switch off my mike and do not let me speak. I guarantee you – make him sit with me, and within five minutes, I will prove Modi is an anti-national and he is controlled by Trump”.
Rahul pointed out, Modi signed the Indo-US Trade Deal within five minutes without taking his cabinet or bureaucrats into confidence. “Trump threatened him and he signed the deal and sold out our farmers, agriculture, data, small & medium industry and everything to the US”, he said, adding, the case against Adani in the US was immediately closed by Trump after Modi signed the trade deal. Gandhi also recalled his meeting with Sidhu Moosewala, who met him before joining the Congress. He said Moosewala was a promising, dynamic and talented youth who could have achieved a lot for Punjab as he carried the voice of the state within him. He said it was sad that his security was withdrawn and he was killed in full public view in broad daylight. He added that the very mindset responsible for Sidhu Moosewala’s killing was now present in every corner of Punjab.
