Amarinder Singh calls out PM Modi over failure to fulfill poll promises

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Friday challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to show even one instance of a promise fulfilled by his government which, he said, has witnessed India's plunge into ruin under the "anti-people" policies. Taking Modi head-on, Amarinder Singh said the 'jumlebaaz' Prime Minister had brought the nation to its nadir with his deceptions and fabrications and was staring at his moment of judgment at the hands of the people, who were set to throw him out of power for good. The Chief Minister's jibe came a day after Modi said the Congress was cheating farmers in the country in the name of loan waivers.

"The Congress earlier cheated the country in the name of 'garibi hatao' for years and is now cheating farmers in the name of loan waivers," Modi had told a public rally of the BJP-Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) alliance in Gurdaspur town. The Chief Minister said the Prime Minister had stooped to abominable levels at the Gurdaspur rally in a desperate bid to mislead the people in the face of his imminent defeat in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

Modi had once again lied on every issue, from the 1984 riots and the Kartarpur corridor to the farm debt waiver, said Amarinder Singh, adding the Prime Minister was talking nonsense to hide the all-round failure of his own government. The Chief Minister minced no words in taking on Modi over the 1984 riots issue, questioning the latter's silence on the BJP and RSS workers named in the Tilak Marg Police Station first information report related to the worst violence perpetrated against the Sikhs, while trying desperately to drag the Gandhi family into the matter even though no fingers had been pointed at them.

"And what about the 2002 riots in Gujarat which happened right under your nose and in which your own party members were squarely blamed and named," Amarinder Singh said, demanding to know why the Prime Minister continued to remain silent on the issue. He also lambasted the Prime Minister for trying to seize credit for the Kartarpur corridor, which the Congress had been actively pursuing since the days of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, right down to Manmohan Singh. He himself had been taking up the issue with Pakistan for years, said the Chief Minister, asking Modi to reveal what he had done to get the project going.

(With inputs from agencies.)