Chandigarh: Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh has refuted allegations levelled by Navjot Singh Sidhu’s wife Navjot Kaur that he and Punjab Congress affairs in-charge, Asha Kumari, ensured she does not get a Lok Sabha ticket from Amritsar.
Terming the charges as “absolute nonsense”, the chief minister said Kaur was offered a ticket from Amritsar and Bathinda but she turned it down. “We had said that if she wants, she can fight from Amritsar, from where her husband was an MP, or she can contest from Bathinda. She herself backed off. Where did we stop it?” asked Amarinder Singh.
He added, “She wanted to contest from Chandigarh but the party decided that it was not for her. I am not the chief minister of Chandigarh. It is an independent seat. The Chandigarh ticket was denied because the high command decided so.”
Kaur, while addressing reporters on Tuesday, had alleged that Singh and Kumari were behind the denial of ticket to her. “Captain saab and Asha Kumari think that madam Sidhu doesn’t deserve a single ticket. My ticket from Amritsar was denied on the ground that I could not win in the aftermath of the Dussehra train tragedy in Amritsar last year. Captain Saab and Asha Kumari said it,” she said.
Meanwhile, speaking about Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s election rally in Faridkot’s Bargari, the epicentre of anti-sacrilege protests in the state, Singh said the issue still had resonance in Punjab.
“Beadbi (sacrilege) is a major issue in Punjab. Badal (Prakash Singh Badal) says people have forgotten the incident. No, they haven’t. The morcha of Jaito is still fresh, the Nankana Sahib morcha is fresh, people still remember the Chota Gallughara. Will they forget the sacrilege of 58 Guru Granth Sahibs? They (SAD) just want to diffuse the issue,” he said.
On the issue of seeking Dera’s support in the ongoing elections, Singh said, “We haven’t asked for a support like that. We have made our position clear. We are asking everybody to come forward and help us for the cause of Punjab. And if the Dera wants to do it, we would be very happy. We have no objections. But I won’t be specifically visiting each and every Dera to seek votes. I don’t have the time for it.”
Notably, it was Singh on whose name the Dera Sacha Sauda had lent its first-ever political support to the Congress in 2007.
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