Congress win in civic elections will complete power chain: Sidhu

GS Paul
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, December 17

Congress Minister Navjot singh Sidhu said on Sunday that Congress party’s victory in the civic elections would complete “a chain of power” — Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on top, legislators in the middle and councillors at the bottom of the pyramid.    

After he and his wife Navjot Kaur Sidhu cast their votes in Amritsar, Sidhu, Punjab’s local bodies minister, said: “Congress will create a history by hitting the hat trick-first — first winning 78 seats in Assembly, then a convincing win in Gurdaspur by-poll and now play ‘googlee’ to win the Corporation seats. This will complete the chain”.

He said that the party’s victory in the Amritsar Municipal Corporation elections would be Chief Minister Singh’s gift to the newly appointed AICC president Rahul Gandhi.

Speaking about Gandhi’s election, he cited the examples of India’s former prime ministers Jawarhar Lal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi to show the Nehru-Gandhi family’s “sacrifice and contribution to nation building”.

 “They have just ‘given’ to the nation and never ‘taken’ anything. Congress is the new ray of hope for 70 per cent youth of future India under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, who is being looked up as a rising leader and claimant for PM’s chair,” he said.

Sidhum blamed the money crunch assailing the Amritsar Municipal Corporation on the corruption that SAD-BJP alliance indulged in, and said: “Whom should have we allocated funds?  To the councillors and mayor of SAD-BJP alliance, who misutilised public funds and indulged in corruption? Now it would be our mayor, our councillors and there would be no dearth of funds”, he said.

Rajya Sabha Parliamentarian Shwait Malik however blamed the civic body’s state on the Congress, saying that the party did not release funds, putting municipal corporations through strain.

“Sidhu is diverting peoples’ attention from his failures as a local bodies minister. It was funny and unjustifiable for him to say that since it was SAD-BJP’s hold on MC here, that’s why he could not issue funds,” he said.