Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Sunday said that it was “wrong” on the part of Cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu to hug Pakistan Army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa during the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Personal visit
“Mr. Sidhu had gone to attend the swearing-in in his personal capacity. It has nothing to do with us. But what I think was wrong is that, given the fact that everyday our soldiers are getting martyred on the borders... to hug their [Pakistan] Army chief is something I do not favour,” Capt. Singh told journalists in Chandigarh.
Capt. Singh dismissed the demand of the Opposition parties for Mr. Sidhu’s resignation, saying “they can demand whatever they want, that’s not an issue.”
“Mr. Sidhu should have avoided indulging in such a gesture when Indian soldiers are getting killed every day on the borders. After all, it is the Army chief who gives the orders to kill, with the soldiers merely following the same...To say that you didn’t know Gen. Bajwa...it is written on the uniform,” he said.
Seated next to PoK ‘president’
As for Mr. Sidhu sitting next to the ‘president’ of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), Capt. Singh said the Punjab Minister possibly did not know who he was and in any case the sitting arrangement was not in his hands.
Meanwhile, Mr. Sidhu returned to India via the Attari-Wagah border. Interacting with journalists, he said he had gone as a guest to the swearing-in-ceremony of Mr. Khan and sat where he was asked to sit. “When you go somewhere on an invitation, you sit according to arrangements.”
Responding to a question on his act of hugging Gen. Bajwa, he said, “If someone [Gen. Bajwa] comes to me and says that we share the same culture and he wants to share a good news. And then says that they [Pakistan] are contemplating to open the Kartarpur border on Guru Nanak Dev’s 550th Prakash Parv..If somebody takes the name of Guru Nanak then what else I could I have done.”
