State Cong chief will cause party's fall in Punjab: Sukhbir

With four days to go for the Moga bypoll, SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Tuesday targeted state Congress chief Amarinder Singh saying he was “ably” doing to the party in Punjab “what Siddhartha Shankar Ray had done to it in West Bengal”.

“SS Ray was made chief minister of West Bengal in 1972, till 1977. After his tenure, Congress never won an election in that state, and it is already 36 years that they have been out of power with no signs of a return in sight,” the deputy chief minister said.

“Captain sahib (Amarinder) is the SS Ray of Punjab Congress,” Sukhbir said at an election rally for Joginderpal Jain, the party candidate for the bypoll. “After Moga, the party will completely disappear from the state,” he said.

Sukhbir said barring the “fluke” in 2002, “Amarinder Singh is known to have brought defeat to any organisation that he has been associated with, including even the SAD (Longowal) when his party managed to win only two seats and he himself lost from Kharar”.

“It goes to the credit of Captain Amarinder that, for the first time in the history of the state, sitting legislators are preferring to resign and contest again than be a part of an organisation which is refusing to mix with the people,” he said.

Jain resigned as a Congress MLA to join the Shiromani Akali Dal and his former party has urged the Moga electorate to teach the “turncoat” a lesson in the February 23 bypoll.