Taking a dig at Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal for speaking ‘outright lies’, Congress candidate from Amritsar Capt. Amarinder Singh on Wednesday described him as a ‘congenital and compulsive liar’ and said that Badal should better undergo a lie detector test to redeem and salvage his pride and prestige.
Capt. Amarinder even challenged Badal to hold a public referendum to establish as to who is considered to be a liar by the people of Punjab.
Reacting to Badal’s claims that the White Paper was written by the Indian government, Capt Amarinder said that he should have known that the government’s White Papers are sacrosanct documents based on truth and facts.
“He is trying to get away by saying even the White Paper was wrong and factually incorrect”, he remarked.
On the Rajiv-Longowal Accord, Captain said, “Either Badal is resorting to outright lies as a congenital liar or has actually grown senile and forgotten his memory as I was not at all in the Congress when the accord was signed and had no role in it”.
He pointed out that he had resigned from the Parliament and the Congress party immediately after Operation Bluestar in June 1984, while the accord was signed more than a year later.
Capt Amarinder said the architect of the Rajiv-Longowal Accord was the then Punjab Governor Arjun Singh while he himself was out of the Congress. However, he added, “I was the first to welcome the accord as I felt it was the first step towards restoring peace and normalcy in Punjab, while Badal opposed and tried to sabotage it and also betrayed his leader Sant Harchand Singh Longowal”.
Referring to Badal’s charges that he got out of the car as he did not want to meet a RAW officer, Capt Amarinder reiterated that he had said it publicly in the Punjab assembly also during his tenure as the Chief Minister that Badal got down from the car while they were going to meet the then Defence Minister R Venkataraman.
“I have said it earlier and I am saying it again that you did not get down from the car for any ideological or sincere commitments to any cause, but in an act of cowardice fearing that you may be seen by people there”, while adding, there were two more people in the car including Gurcharan Singh Tohra and Surjit Singh Barnala who were witness to it. By Ravinder Singh Robin(ANI)