CHANDIGARH: Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh on Tuesday afternoon filed his nomination papers from the Patiala Assembly constituency to launch the countdown to his last electoral battle.
He was accompanied by wife and Patiala MLA Preneet Kaur and other family members. Amarinder stopped en route to offer prayers and take blessings at the Gurdwara and temple at Burj Baba Ala Singh at the historic Qila Mubarak of his ancestral home, followed by the Kali Mata Mandir, built by his family, as well as Gurdwara Dukh Nivaran Sahib.
Amarinder will file his papers from Lambi, the other seat from which he is contesting the Assembly polls, on Wednesday. At Lambi, he is taking chief minister Parkash Singh Badal head-on in what he himself has dubbed as ‘the grandfather of all battles’.
After filing his nomination, Amarinder said he was determined to defeat Badal from Lambi in order to teach a lesson to all future chief ministers misusing their powers for personal and family gains. He trashed AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal’s charge that he was fighting from chief minister Badal’s home turf of Lambi to help him win, and challenged Kejriwal to enter the electoral contest in the same constituency.
Amarinder also ruled out an alliance with any party, asserting that the Congress would sweep the Assembly elections with 2/3rd majority.
Dismissing the charges levelled by Kejriwal, Amarinder said the AAP leader was talking through his head without a rational thought in his mind. “He had said earlier that I should fight Badal and now he says I’m helping the chief minister by contesting against him,” he said.
He ruled out any serious threat to him from former army chief Gen JJ Singh (Retd) (he refused to call him a General, which he said was a fluke caused by his seniority and not the result of merit), whom the Shiromani Akali Dal has pitted against him in Patiala.
After filing the nomination papers, Amarinder kicked off his road show from a flower-decked open jeep, going through the lanes and bylanes of Patiala, while interacting with the huge crowds lined up along both sides of the road.