Maintaining his long-standing allegations against the state party leadership for “mismanagement”, Amarinder Singh, in an interview for Firstpost, speaks about his determination to flex political muscle to rescue Punjab.

By Shalini Singh

The Congress Party is grappling with an ugly and extremely public infighting in Punjab. Party chief Partap Singh Bajwa has alleged an imminent defection by Captain Amarinder Singh to the BJP and advised the Congress High Command to "show him the door" for being a "traitor".

Not known for reticence, the titular Maharaja of Punjab and former chief minister has retaliated by calling Bajwa an "incompetent failure". This fracas is strategically timed on the eve on an announcement about who will lead the party in the upcoming state elections. Maintaining his long-standing allegations against the state party leadership for “mismanagement”, Amarinder Singh, in an interview for Firstpost, speaks about his determination to flex political muscle to rescue Punjab, and the challenges ahead.

There are rumors that you could be named Congress president in Punjab before November 26. What is the truth?

I cannot comment on rumours and feelers. We must wait for an official announcement.

You have criticized Rahul Gandhi as a politician, especially his handling of Punjab, praised Sonia Gandhi and Narendra Modi and threatened to exercise your “options” if mismanagement of Punjab continues. What can one interpret from this?

If the Congress does not need me, I am not going to sit back and allow the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to capture Punjab. I am going to fight them tooth and nail, because the AAP is not working in the interest of the common man as it claims to be doing.

Mr Bajwa has alleged you are cozying up to the BJP to save yourself from an Income-Tax probe into the link between your wife Preneet Kaur’s HSBC Geneva account and certain trusts and companies. What’s the truth? Is a shift to the BJP imminent?

Trying to link me with the BJP is naïve, because my supporters in villages would never accept the BJP. Besides, there is a captive BJP-SAD vote base in some villages, SAD base in cities and BJP supporters in the northern belts like Pathankot which makes it impossible for me to be in any alliance with them.

Let me be clear: I will never, ever join the BJP. There has been only one break in my career since I entered politics in 1969 — when I resigned in 1984 in protest against Operation Blue Star and joined the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). I left the SAD after 14 years to rejoin the Congress in 1998 because I found Badal to be completely unreliable and with no national vision.

Is it true that the BJP has made overtures?

No, I have not met them. The story of Amit Shah meeting me is rubbish. You mark my words, the BJP and SAD will stay together. They have to survive. Extremists always unite. Arun Jaitley recently commented that if the extremist view were to be removed then there would be no one left in the party. This statement was published in every newspaper.

Is Mr Bajwa’s allegation of you setting up your own political outfit called Punjab Vikas Party true?

The Punjab Vikas Party was one of 49 names that were suggested to me for a political party. The name was rejected outright as a party of the same name exists in Haryana. These are all preliminaries going on.

What are these "preliminaries" for? What are the “options” you are threatening to exercise?

I have been with the Congress for decades now, so I cannot change my loyalty at the drop of a hat. By saying I will exercise my options, I mean I might set up my own party. I have to live in Punjab and so do my children, so I feel it is up to me to mount a suitable opposition to AAP and the SAD before they destroy Punjab beyond repair. We need strong governance.

Doesn’t this vicious, public infighting undermine the Congress Party and its chances of winning a high-stakes state election?

Yes it does. Congress president Sonia Gandhi should look into this matter. We can only bring up such mistakes and I did bring Bajwa's failures and indiscretions to her notice long before he started his allegations. Bajwa should have been asked to shut his mouth.

Is it in BJP’s interest to continue its alliance with the SAD considering it is a sinking ship?

The only way the BJP can survive or try to form a government is to tie up with the SAD. Narendra Modi’s charisma will not work without an ally. Our political adversary in the upcoming election is not the BJP but AAP.

Are you completely writing off the SAD in Punjab?

There is total polarization against the Akali Dal. Whether it is the Congress, BSP, AAP or the extremist elements, everyone has ganged up against them. They are on the hatchet block. They are not going to recover. Incidents of members of the public beating ministers up is evidence of that.

You call AAP members a bunch of Leftists and extremists. Please explain.

Extremism took birth under Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. The Khalistan movement drew Naxalites and people from the extreme Right and the extreme Left. My hunch is that the AAP will develop in the same manner. The Maoists, Khalistanis and frustrated teenagers will join AAP. This is the threat. And five years of arms and terror will completely destroy Punjab. Akalis are not Khalistanis. They are just stupid. But the Akalis destroyed Punjab consistently for 10 years and if we give AAP another 5 years to sink Punjab, we will never be able to recover from that mistake. People understand this, which is evident from feedback from social media and chat groups. In the parliamentary elections, we estimated the AAP would get 25,000 votes, but they took more than 80,000 in every constituency, with 3.05 lakh votes in Anantpur Sahib, winning 4 of 13 seats in Punjab, including Patiala. That was the position then. But now the people of Punjab have become aware that Arvind Kejriwal is not delivering in Delhi and so AAP's political threat is diminishing. AAP’s weakness is its lack of administrative experience and the fact that Kejriwal blames every failure on the Centre. People have seen through this tactic.

Drugs, debt, the resurgence of extremism, the desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib and volatile anti-incumbency are among the top issues haunting a state which you say is “in irreversible decline”. Don’t you have a difficult job ahead of you in terms of drawing up a positive, yet effective election strategy?

People are more interested in positive action, development and hope rather than in cribbing about the past. We need a strong economic policy. We need to bring back industries to Punjab to give jobs and pay salaries. We need infrastructure development and a strong agriculture policy. We need land, power, education and private healthcare. The BJP-SAD government has eaten away all the state revenues. It’s going to be a challenging, uphill task. The people of Punjab are united in their conviction that if anyone can bring them out of this mess, it is the Congress party. Our perceived as well as demonstrated strengths are our policy-making skills, experience and emphasis on governance. If I am made the party president, my first move will be policy-making and program implementation. I completed implementation of all the 100 points in our program during my tenure six months before the elections. This was unlike these SAD chaps who have a couple of 100 programs but have hardly implemented 20.

Shalini Singh is a senior journalist working out of Delhi.