Just days ahead of the polls, Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi said ‘don’t let UP, Bihar ke bhaiya enter Punjab’. While he made the remark, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi could be seen standing by him smiling and applauding.
The BJP has now hit back, saying the chief minister has insulted people from UP and Bihar. The BJP said Priyanka Gandhi has insulted the people of UP where the Congress is fighting the polls.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal also slammed Channi’s reported remark. He said, “It is very shameful. We strongly condemn comments aimed at any individual or any particular community. Priyanka Gandhi also belongs to UP, so she is also a bhaiya.”
Charanjit Singh Channi is the Congress’s official chief ministerial candidate in the Punjab election. His CM candidature was announced by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi earlier this month following a tele-voting conducted by the party. He secured more votes than Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu, who was pressing his nomination as the CM candidate for long.
With Channi’s nomination as the chief ministerial candidate, the Congress hopes to win over the Dalit voters of Punjab. Dalits make up more than 32 per cent of Punjab’s population. Channi became the first chief minister from Dalit community in Punjab, where Jat Sikhs dominated the political space.
Punjab is going to the polls on February 20 for all 117 seats in a multi-cornered contest between the Congress, the Aam Aadmi Party, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and a new alliance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and former Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh’s fledgling outfit Punjab Lok Congress. (PLC).
