The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national general secretary and incharge for Punjab affairs Dushyant Gautam on Thursday accused the Congress government in the State of attempting to create an atmosphere of hatred and violence.
Mr. Gautam said the incident of attack on the BJP workers during birth anniversary celebration event of former Prime Minister late Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Bathinda last week has exposed Congress party’s intentions. “The Punjab police unfortunately is playing a partisan role and is allowing protesters to picket outside residences of our workers and leaders,” alleged Mr. Gautam.
The protesters supporting the ongoing farm agitation had been staging ‘dharnas’ outside residences of several BJP leaders for the past many days.
“Unfortunately, the Congress has a long history of creating disharmony in the country whether it was the partition of this great country or the very recent 1984 riots in which thousands lost their lives,” said Mr. Gautam.
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, meanwhile hit out at Punjab BJP, accusing it for spreading false propaganda surrounding law and order situation in the State.
Capt. Amarinder said BJP state president Ashwani Sharma was making desperate attempts to falsely project a law-and-order problem in Punjab, which reflected the party’s fear of complete annihilation in the upcoming civic polls.
Talking to journalists in Kharar, the Chief Minister said the state BJP’s request to the Punjab Governor for postponement of the civic polls on the baseless grounds of law-and-order situation collapse showed that the party leadership was in complete panic at the prospect of facing the elections at a time when the people were angry at them over the farm laws.
Dismissing as “atrocious” BJP state leadership’s charges that the Congress was responsible for the damage to mobile towers in the State, and the resultant loss of studies to the students, the Chief Minister asked, “Are we responsible for the farmers’ angst against the BJP?” “We were not the ones who enacted the farm laws, it was the BJP-led central government,” he added.
While these incidents were unfortunate, the fact was that these were happening as a result of the spontaneous outburst of farmers as their genuine demands had not been conceded so far, said the Chief Minister, trashing Punjab BJP leaders’ claims that the government of India had been accepted the demands of the farmers from the outset.
