Capt Amarinder ridicules Sukhbir’s charge that Congress was behind Sarbat Khalsa

CHANDIGARH: Congress deputy leader in the Lok Sabha Capt. Amarinder Singh has on Monday ridiculed the Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal’s charge that Congress is behind the Sarbat Khalsa being held at Amritsar on Tuesday.
Amarinder also condemned the deputy CM for saying that Congress vice-President Rahul Gandhi’s visit to the victims of police firing in Punjab was political.
Capt Amarinder “advised” Sukhbir and his father Parkash Singh Badal, who is also Punjab chief minister, that instead of blaming others, particularly the Congress, they must “introspect and realise and admit their own gross failures on political and administrative fronts.”
Referring to the Sarbat Khalsa, the former chief minister asserted that the Congress was a secular party which, unlike the Akalis, did not believe in using and misusing religion for political ends.
“Congress has always believed in and stood for peace and harmony and laid down lot of sacrifices for retrieving and safeguarding it”, he said.
Referring to Sukhbir’s criticism of Rahul Gandhi’s visit to the families of those killed in police firing against sacrilege protestors and the farmers who committed suicide, Amarinder said, he (Sukhbir) should “feel ashamed” that while Rahul came all the way from Delhi to meet them, he and his father (Punjab CM Prakash Singh Badal) “had not mustered the courage so far to meet them and were still in their hideouts.”