Ahead of Punjab Assembly elections, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Thursday accused the Congress of playing politics around caste and religion and conspiring to divide the people by giving a religious colour to the politics of Punjab.
Reacting to Punjab Congress leader Sunil Jakhar’s statement about Chief Minister selection, AAP Punjab affairs co-in-charge Raghav Chadha said the biggest example of the Congress’ caste and religion politics is that senior Congress leader Sunil Jakhar was not appointed as Chief Minister of Punjab just because he is Hindu, even though he had support of 42 MLAs.
42 backers
Mr. Chadha said Mr. Jakhar recently stated that 42 MLAs agreed on his name in the Congress MLAs’ meeting held after the removal of Captain Amarinder Singh from the post of Chief Minister. According to Mr. Jakhar, the Deputy Chief Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa had support of 16, Preneet Kaur 12, Navjot Sidhu 6 and Chief Minister Channi had the support of only two MLAs.
Mr. Chadha said it is very shameful that the Congress dropped Mr. Jakhar from the Chief Minister race just because he is Hindu and appointed Mr. Channi as their CM who only had the support of two MLAs.
‘Just two options’
Mr. Chadha said the Congress is only using Mr. Jakhar’s name for Hindu votes. “The Congress is giving only two options to the people to choose their Chief Minister face — one Navjot Singh Sidhu and the other Charanjit Singh Channi, why was Mr. Jakhar not an option? he quipped.
He said that the Congress should not discriminate against people on the basis of caste and religion. “The Aam Aadmi Party condemn the Congress’s behaviour towards Sunil Jakhar and hope that it will act as a responsible political party in these elections,” he added.
