New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi broke his silence on Thursday on the reasons behind the party removing Captain Amarinder Singh as the chief minister of Punjab.
Addressing a rally in Punjab's Fatehgarh Sahib ahead of February 20 polls, Rahul Gandhi said, "It is because he did not agree to provide free electricity to the poor people. He said I have a contract with the power supplying companies."
Amarinder Singh had resigned as the Punjab chief minister last year amid a bitter power tussle with Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu. Congress replaced Amarinder Singh with Charanjit Singh Channi.
Amarinder Singh went on to form his own party Punjab Lok Congress. He is fighting the polls in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiromani Akali Dal (Sanyukt). Amarinder Singh is in the fray from Patiala.
Training his guns on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi said, "I am not here to lie to people. I won’t make promises that I will give two crore jobs or 15 lakh in the account. The biggest thing is that Punjab has peace and brotherhood and the day we lose this we will lose everything. And Punjab has to defend this. And this only congress can do and no one else."
"Modi said 'I will give 2 crore jobs and Rs 15 lakh to citizens' and now he doesn't say anything of the kind. Modi doesn’t talk of development, jobs or the Rs 15 lakh and today, unemployment is everywhere," Rahul Gandhi further said.
The Congress leader also said that small businessmen had suffered a lot because of demonetisation and faulty implementation of GST.
While talking about the Covid situation in the country, Gandhi said, "During Covid, I warned them that we must prepare ourselves in Punjab but they ridiculed me. Modiji said 'thaali bajao' and switch on mobile phones to fight Covid. No other country leader has done that".
Rahul Gandhi also slammed Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for the Covid deaths in Delhi due to oxygen shortage during the second wave of the pandemic last year.
"Kejriwal boasts of Mohalla clinics, but during Covid where did they disappear? Why did so many people die? They died without oxygen, without ventilators. You know who got oxygen to Delhi. The Youth Congress supplied oxygen when Delhi govt failed to do so," he said.
On the drug menace in Punjab, Rahul said development and growth would be meaningless in Punjab if drugs continue to destroy lives of youth in the state.
"I kept saying, drugs is a threat to the country. I'm saying this again, Punjab is not a state where experiments should be done. Development and growth will be meaningless in Punjab if drugs continue to destroy lives of youth here," Gandhi said.