ANANDPUR SAHIB—Having a dig at the Chief Minister Parkash Badal for speaking “outright lies” and terming him a “congenital and compulsive liar” former Punjab Chief Minister and Congress candidate from Amritsar Capt Amarinder Singh today said that he (Mr Badal) should better undergo a lie detector test to redeem and salvage his pride and prestige. Capt Amarinder even challenged Mr Badal to hold a public referendum to establish as who was considered to be a liar by the people of Punjab.
In his Facebook post and later in an elaborate statement, while reacting to Mr Badal’s claims that the White Paper was “written by the government of India”, Capt Amarinder pointed out, he (Mr Badal) should know as a five time Chief Minister that government 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.
About the Rajiv-Longowal Accord, the former Chief Minister said, “either Mr 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, he 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 Mr 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 as also in Punjab assembly during his tenure as the Chief Minister that he (Mr 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.
Capt Amarinder reminded Mr Badal that he had narrated this truth in the Vidhan Sabha in front of him when whole of Punjab watched it live. “At that time you did not deny it but just kept on passing sheepish smiles and now you are saying I am lying”, he told Mr Badal while adding, “I said it then that you ran away as a coward and I am saying it now again that you ran away like a coward”.
