After Sidhu, now Congress MLA Pargat Singh criticises Amarinder over 2015 Faridkot firing probe

By PTI
CHANDIGARH: Congress MLA Pargat Singh on Wednesday questioned the working of his party government in Punjab and even suggested Amarinder Singh to conduct a survey to know about the latter’s performance as the chief minister of the state.

Pargat also expressed his annoyance over the alleged delay in justice in the incidents of desecration of a religious text and subsequent police firing in Faridkot in 2015.

He met Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, who has been holding meetings with party legislators amid growing pressure within the party for taking the post-sacrilege police firing incidents to its logical conclusion.

“The 2017 assembly election was won in the name of Captain Amarinder Singh. I told the CM sahib that ‘you should hold your own survey as CM’. We will come to exactly where we stand,” Pargat told reporters.

He said people had voted for Amarinder in 2017 after seeing his performance from 2002 to 2007 as the chief minister of the state.

“But he is not that Captain now,” he said.

“Asked if delay in justice in the case will adversely impact the Congress’s chances in the 2022 assembly polls, Pargat said, “We have already suffered a blow. But we have to see how to come out of it.”

The Punjab and Haryana High court had on April 9 quashed the Punjab police SIT probe report into Kotkapura police firing at people protesting against the desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib in Faridkot in 2015.

The state government has already announced to form a new team to probe the firing incident.

To a question on Amarinder daring former minister Navjot Sidhu to contest from Patiala, Pargat said he does not expect a leader like Amarinder to say this.

“Such things should not be said. The CM is a fatherly figure of a state,” he said.

On Tuesday, Amarinder had challenged Sidhu to contest against him from Patiala seat and said the latter would lose his security deposit like the way former Army chief J J Singh did.

Congress legislator Navjot Sidhu has been attacking his own party-led government and the CM over the alleged delay in justice in the incidents of desecration and the subsequent police firing incident.