The BJP Wednesday questioned the Congress over its election campaign committee chief Sunil Jakhar quitting active politics in the midst of the poll campaign even as it attacked Rahul Gandhi for claiming that his party’s CM candidate Charanjit Singh Channi came from a poor family.
“Jakhar has announced having quit the active politics. This was primarily because he was refused the Chief Ministership of Punjab for being a Hindu, something that, from his own admission, has hurt him badly,” Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said.
The BJP in-charge for Punjab further said: “Majority of the Sikh MLAs had supported Jakhar for CM post, but the Congress high command chose not to appoint him, because he was a Hindu. The Congress also told him as much, irrespective of generations of association and contribution of his family towards the party. The fault does not lie with the people of Punjab, but the Congress, which is trying to divide people along the communal lines”.
Shekhawat said that the Congress already stands exposed. He said party leaders and workers should introspect where they stood in Congress that treats them as second-class citizens.
“You must remember that no matter how popular you are, how successful you are, how hardworking you are and how committed you are, your Chief Ministerial dreams and doors will always remain closed, as has been made clear by the party leadership the way it treated Jakhar,” he told the Congress leaders and workers, adding, “the time has come for all of you to make right choices and right decisions”.
Meanwhile, party general secretary Tarun Chugh said that Rahul Gandhi was making a mockery of the poor in Punjab by bracketing “Rs 170-crore worth Channi” with the blue card holders. While asserting that Gandhi should stop ridiculing the poor, Chugh underlined how the Modi government had provided free ration to the 1.42 lakh poor in the state and gave other facilities. Chugh said during his 111-day government, Channi’s nephew minted crores through transfer and posting besides providing protection to mafia. “The Channi model of the Congress has ruined the state,” he added.