Punjab CM Amarinder Singh acting like BJP agent: AAP leader Raghav Chadha

CHANDIGARH: AAP leader Raghav Chadha here on Saturday accused Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh of acting like a "BJP agent" and advised him to "officially join" the saffron party.

He further alleged that the Punjab chief minister was "helpless" and "bound to appease" the Centre to "save" his son who is facing the ED investigation.

The AAP leader further claimed that the Amarinder Singh-led Punjab government, which was part of the high-powered committee formed by the Centre on its three contentious farm ordinances earlier, had given its approval.

Amarinder Singh is "acting like a BJP agent", Chadha alleged while addressing the media.

"My unsolicited advice to the CM is that you should formally join the BJP. My advice to you is please join the BJP officially. Then all cases against your relatives being probed by the ED, the CBI or corruption matters will be buried," he said.

"And then you can also work openly for the BJP."

He criticised the chief minister for approaching the President to seek scrapping of the farm laws instead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Chadha alleged that the CM did not come out of his residence to stand with farmers when they were facing water cannons and teargas shells on their way to Delhi.

Amarinder Singh had met Union Home Minister Amit Shah but did not bother to travel a few extra kilometres to meet the agitating farmers, the AAP leader said.

Chadha said the Congress-led dispensation has opposed the decision of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, which had said that the apex gurdwara body would not invite the prime minister for the upcoming 400th birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Tegh Bahadur.

"Captain Sahib, his minister and his party are opposing the SGPC decision and are saying Modi should be invited. It proves that to save his son, Captain Sahib is behaving like an agent of BJP," he alleged.

The AAP leader claimed his party is providing legal assistance to the aggrieved farmers, who are moving courts against some BJP leaders for their alleged defamatory remarks against them.

Meanwhile, Punhab cabinet minister and Congress leader Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa slammed Chadha and termed as "unfortunate" the politicking being indulged by him over religious issues.

In a statement here, Randhawa outrightly rejected the allegations levelled by the AAP leader of him being 'hand in glove" with the BJP because of disagreeing over the issue of SGPC for not inviting the Prime Minister for the 400th 'Prakash Purb' of Guru Tegh Bahadur.

"Politics must be kept separate from the matters concerning religion," he said adding, "the 'B' team of the BJP has no moral right to dole out certificates to the Congressmen over opposition to the saffron party.

" He said the Congress party has always opposed the BJP in the political circles whereas the Aam Aadmi Party has always "acted as the 'B' team of BJP".