An aide of CM Amarinder Singh, on condition of anonymity, said he knew about the party rally in Patna but didn’t know that Congress CMs were invited.Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh’s absence from Congress’ Jan Akanksha rally in Patna in Bihar, where Chief Ministers of three Congress-ruled states were present, has raised eyebrows in the state unit.
As soon as the Twitter handle of Indian National Congress tweeted a picture of AICC president Rahul Gandhi with the Chief Ministers of Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, and Congress treasurer Ahmed Patel, on board a flight to Patna, Congress leaders in Punjab got into action to find out why Amarinder was not part of the rally.
An aide of the CM, on condition of anonymity, said he knew about the party rally in Patna but didn’t know that Congress CMs were invited.
At the rally where the CMs of the three states — Ashok Gehlot, Bhupesh Baghel and Kamal Nath — were flown in, Rahul Gandhi made a specific mention remark on how these states kept the pre-poll promise of waiving farmers’ loans.
“To attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a rally, Rahul took three Chief Ministers but ignored Punjab’s loan waiver. We have also waived loans worth Rs 4,000 crore. He could have mentioned it at least,” said a party leader on condition of anonymity.
He said that Amarinder was a leader with charisma and has a national standing but his absence from party’s important rally conveys a message, “In fact this picture tweeted by Congress is worth a thousand words,” said another party leader.
At a time when the party was facing rout across the country, it formed government in Punjab by securing 77 seats out of 117 under Amarinder’s leadership in March 2017.
PPCC president Sunil Jakhar said he was busy in his constituency, Gurdaspur, whole day and was not aware of the
development.
