Capt, Sukhbir flex muscles, stage set for battle royale
S.P. Sharma
Tribune News Service
Bathinda, August 21
The first thing that Amarinder Singh has decided to do after his rehabilitation in the Congress is to flex his muscles at his main political opponent, chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, by organising a rally in the latter's Lambi assembly constituency in Muktsar district on September 1.
The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief, Sukhbir Singh Badal, has also made up his mind to not let down his father and show his strength by organising a massive public meeting at Talwandi Sabo the very next day on September 2. However, the SAD show will be in connection with foundation stone laying of the Rs 10,000 crore thermal power station at Talwandi Sabo that is represented in the assembly by Amarinder's right hand man, Jeet Mohinder Singh Sidhu.
While Amarinder's men are putting in lot of efforts to make the rally a grand show in Badal's bastion, Sukhbir Badal is coming here on Saturday to mobilise SAD activists for the next day's rally. He has been on a whirlwind tour of the Malwa region for the past few days and visited Faridkot today.
Effort of the Congress was to retain its supremacy during the coming Lok Sabha elections in the Malwa belt of Punjab where the SAD received a drubbing in the last assembly elections.
The prestige of Amarinder Singh, who has been appointed chairman of the campaign committee of the Congress in Punjab, would be at stake particularly in the Malwa region as there were reports of Sukhbir Badal contesting the Lok Sabha election for the Bathinda constituency in case he finds the political atmosphere conducive here.
It would be an uphill task for both sides, as even after winning a large number of assembly seats in Malwa, the Congress leadership has remained inactive here during a long stretch when Rajinder Kaur Bhattal was the PCC chief. The Dera Sacha Sauda followers, who backed the Congress, were a harried lot because of attacks by SAD activists.
A sitting MLA of Congress, who did not want to be identified, said that the rally at Lambi was being organised basically to boost the morale of the Congress supporters who were demoralised after losing to the SAD. Moreover, it was alleged that the SAD won the recent elections for local bodies by capturing booths.
The SAD and Amarinder supporters are for the past few days engaged in a war of words and indulging in mudslinging at each other.
The SAD has announced many development works in the Malwa belt apparently to win over the electorate who generally voted for the Congress as a result of which the SAD was forced to secure the help of the BJP in forming the government. The foundation stone of another thermal power station costing Rs13,000 crores would be laid at Gidderbaha on October 15. Although all this was being done by the SAD-led coalition government, but it was proving to be counter-productive as people in the Malwa heartland in Bathinda were getting annoyed, as the development activity here was moving at a snail's pace because of indifference of the officialdom.
The current floods have come in handy for the Congress to grill the Badals for having failed to properly handle the situation. While Parkash Singh Badal said here yesterday that the government has taken every measure to provide succour to the flood-hit persons, Amarinder Singh has lashed out at the SAD-BJP coalition for its "failure" to provide timely relief to the flood victims. He expressed shock that when hundreds and thousands of people were marooned in the floodwaters, the chief minister found time to watch a movie in a Jalandhar theatre.
Amarinder Singh observed that this was the lack of foresight on the part of the state government that it did not take preventive measures. A government that could not rise to the occasion during the adverse circumstances can never be expected to do any good to the state, he added.
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