By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: Congress will kick off election campaign in Punjab on January 3 next year with former party chief Rahul Gandhi likely to hold a rally in Moga and directions have been sent to Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and state chief Navjot Singh Sidhu to work in tandem so that the party presents a united stand at the campaign launch.
The campaign rally is scheduled at Moga’s Killi Chahlan village.
In the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress MP had launched a Congress campaign for Punjab from the same venue along with a rally.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) also recently held its 100-year celebration rally at the place.
Meanwhile, Channi on Monday said Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal should not take Punjabis for granted and understand that they are capable of leading their own state and do not need an “outsider” like him.
Channi said this during his visit to Rohno Kalan village near Khanna, where he inaugurated a sports park and a panchayat building, an official statement said.
“Proud Punjabis will never let an outsider like Kejriwal rule them,” he said.
Channi said his government is implementing the common man’s agenda while people like Kejriwal are promising “the moon to people in Punjab, rather than working for the betterment of the common man in Delhi”.
“Kejriwal is best at rolling out bundles of lies before the people of Punjab,” he said.
“It is the same Kejriwal who before the 2017 Punjab Vidhan Sabha elections had given a guarantee that he would throw (SAD leader) Bikram Singh Majithia behind bars for his relations with the drug mafia,” he said.
“And when AAP failed to form government in Punjab, the same Kejriwal offered unconditional apology to Majithia in the court, that too on AAP letterhead.
Families who have lost their sons due to the drug menace will never forgive Kejriwal,” he said.
Channi said his government has set the wheel in motion by not only booking Majithia but raids are also underway to arrest him.
He said the “chacha-bhateeja” relationship between former chief minister Amarinder Singh and Bikram Singh Majithia “is now an open secret as the former has been issuing statements in favour of the Akali leader”.
At a separate event in Moga, Channi assured people that the previous SAD-BJP alliance government in the state will be made accountable for the “betrayal” committed against Punjab and its people during its “decade-long misrule”.
He said people of the state owe an explanation from Akalis “for pushing the youth into drugs, sacrilege cases and bringing the state on the brink of an economic disaster”.
The beginning has already been made with the registration of an FIR against former Akali minister Bikram Singh Majithia, he said.
Majithia had been booked under the NDPS Act.
Alleging that Majithia “became a brand of drugs”, Channi said the former minister would be soon put behind the bars.
Channi alleged that the SAD leadership is in cahoots with the BJP government at the Centre for the implementation of three “black” farm laws.
He said Harsimrat Kaur Badal was the part and parcel of the Central cabinet, which was “instrumental” in getting these “draconian” laws framed and finally she was forced to quit the Cabinet in the wake of widespread angst of people, especially farmers.
(With PTI Inputs)
