CHANDIGARH: Punjab Congress President Partap Singh Bajwa today said the Assembly elections in Delhi had proved that the Narendra Modi wave had petered out in less than a year and this had never happened with any other leader earlier.
In a statement here, he said BJP had received a massive mandate of the people in the Lok Sabha elections who had high hopes on him but it was now clear that those hopes had been belied.
"The people had wasted no time in teaching the BJP a lesson which had been resorting to divisive and regressive politics," he said.
He said the rout of the BJP which was out to implement its divisive agenda would be good for the country as the party had hoodwinked the people to come to power in the Lok Sabha election.
He said the BJP was in alliance with the Akali Dal, but even Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, who claims himself to be the master strategist, could not help the BJP or his own party which contested on one seat.
He said the people had pinned high hopes on the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which had raised ambitions of the people to a very level. "The party would have to match its performance with that level of hope," he added.
He said the coming months would be the test of Arvind Kejriwal and hoped that he would come up to the high expectations the people of Delhi had on him.
He reiterated that the most significant aspect of this election was the ignominious defeat of the BJP and its policy to portray this diverse country as Hindu India.
"Historically, this country represented secular traditions and the BJP had tried to play with fire. The people had given a befitting reply to its divisive agenda," he added.
He called upon the Congressmen in Punjab to meet the new challenge which would not come from the Akali Dal-BJP combine but from AAP which was representing the thinking of the common man.
He said the need of the hour was to unitedly face the new.
He said it was the factionalism which had been the bane of the party over the years.
He said the Congress represented the idea of a secular India and as such, the party would be all the more relevant at the time when the people had rejected the communal policies of the BJP.
He said what happened in Delhi was defeat of the communal forces as the people were looking for an alternative as they had lost faith in the Congress to provide an alternative and asserted that Congress would hit back with new gusto.