Chandigarh, August 19: Hitting out at the Opposition for continuing to play dirty politics at a time when Punjab was going through a critical period in its Covid crisis, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Wednesday said the one-day Assembly session convened by his government was a Constitutional requirement, as clearly mentioned in the official announcement two days back.
Contrary to the Akali allegation, the `cruel joke’ on the people was not by his government but by SAD president Sukhbir, whose pathetic record in attendance in Assembly as MLA showed how little importance he gave to the House and its sessions, said the Chief Minister. From March 2017 to May 2019, when he was MLA, Sukhbir attended House for only 16 of the 40 days in session, he pointed out.
Captain Amarinder Singh expressed shock at the reaction of SAD president Sukhbir Badal and AAP leader Harpal Singh Cheema, terming it not just ludicrous but a manifestation of the total lack of sensitivity and concern on the part of the two opposition parties in the state.
Both the parties seemed bent on playing with the sentiments of the people, whose only concern at present was to protect themselves from the Coronavirus, which was peaking in Punjab and could play havoc with the state before stabilising, said the Chief Minister.
Responding to Sukhbir’s remark that the single day session was ‘evidence of the government’s acknowledgement that it has lost the mandate to govern’, Captain Amarinder said his government had the mandate of the people and did not need the support of the handful of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) MLAs in the Assembly.
The only pressure on the government in calling the one-day session was Constitutional, the Chief Minister further said, urging Sukhbir to go and read up the Constitution, whose principles and rules the Akalis had stopped upholding a long time ago.
Pointing out that several ministers, MLAs and officials were currently either Covid positive or in quarantine, the Chief Minister said either Sukhbir was ignorant of the ground situation or simply did not care. With 34400 people in the state tested positive so far and 898 deaths (including 1704 reported positive and 35 dead on a single day on August 18), the situation was grim, he noted, adding that as many as 366 people were on Oxygen and 3 critically ill on ventilators.
His government, said Captain Amarinder, was more interested in dealing with this grave problem at the moment that in listening to Sukhbir’s nonsensical rumblings. If Sukhbir was seriously concerned about the interests of the people, he should put his energies into helping them out through the pandemic instead of issuing provocative statements to promote his vested petty political interests, said the Chief Minister, adding that instead of making all this unnecessary noise on non-issues the Akalis should support the state government in combatting Covid.
The Chief Minister said neither the SAD nor Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had any meaningful issue to project among the people, and were thus resorting to shameful antics in the midst of the pandemic. “What bigger core issue can there be for us at present than to fight Covid with all our might,” he asked, reacting to AAP MLA Cheema’s allegation that the state government was ‘running away from discussions on the core issues.’
This was not the time for discussion but for action, but neither SAD nor AAP cared about that, he said, adding that the only concern for these parties appeared to be to score political brownie points. “Our people are suffering, they are dying, but the Akalis and AAP are simply not concerned about their plight,” said Captain Amarinder, adding that it was this anti-people attitude that had cost SAD the past several elections and which was also responsible for the plight of the people of Delhi, where AAP was in power.
