Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Thursday hit out at Union Minister Prakash Javadekar, accusing him of attempting to shift the blame for the Red Fort violence on the Congress, which he said had evidently been instigated by supporters and members of his own BJP in collusion with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
“Workers and supporters of the BJP and the AAP, and not the Congress, have been caught on camera waving the Nishan sahib at the Red Fort,” said Capt. Amarinder. “Not a single Congress leader or member was seen there indulging in any kind of lawlessness. Even farmers were not responsible for the January 26 trouble, which was in fact the doing of anti-social elements who had infiltrated the tractor rally,” he said.
He said the Centre should also get a free and fair probe conducted into the possible role of any political party, or even a third country as is being alleged by the BJP’s own leaders, to ensure that the guilty are punished and the genuine farmers are not unnecessarily maligned or harassed.
The Chief Minister also lashed out at the Union Minister for accusing former Congress president Rahul Gandhi of inciting the violence. “Did the Congress leader ask anyone to climb the Red Fort? He did not. It was the BJP and the AAP men who did that,” he said, adding that Mr. Gandhi had, in fact, promptly condemned the violence, and made it clear that violence was no solution to the crisis.
“These allegations are nothing but a cover-up attempt by the BJP leader for his own party’s role in the violence, and in fact for their utter failure to manage the situation, which they had created in the first place with the unilateral implementation of the black farm laws,” said Capt. Amarinder.
“How could I stop peaceful farmers from going to their own national capital to exercise their democratic right of protest,” the Chief Minister said, reacting to the Union Minister’s statement that the Punjab government had failed to stop farmers from joining the rally.
