The Congress is down at the moment but will certainly bounce back, said Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, adding he felt this would happen in his lifetime. He is also worried at the rising cases of Covid-10 and said people needed to understand the importance of social distancing and wear masks. However, with easing of lockdown, things are limping back to normal, said Singh during a conversation with Prabhu Chawla, Editorial Director, The New Indian Express, on TNIE’s Expressions, a series of live webcasts with people who matter.
Why are you staying away from national politics?
I feel happier staying in my state and all parties have seen ups and downs. These things happen and this is democracy working. There is political manipulation and these keeps happening.
At the moment we are down, the party will bounce back and come to power in future and I feel in my lifetime itself. Sonia Gandhi will lead the party and if not her, then Rahul Gandhi will lead the party. Rahul is very competent and my choice is that Rahul should lead the party.
What’s the Covid-19 situation in the state?
We started off on a better foot, but the situation is deteriorating. We have tested over 8 lakh samples out of which 36,000 are positive . We had lost 920 people till Wednesday evening. It is not a very good situation, maybe better than other states, but I am not happy. We are going to have an extended lockdown again in Punjab and I think we are going to peak in September and figures that are projected are not good.
Whom do you blame?
We had 11,00 people coming from Maharashtra and 900 tested positive and then we had 46,000 people flown in from countries in the West and 50,000 people are coming in from Delhi and Haryana. That is what we are concerned about and are planning to put some checks on the movement. My job is to see that predictions (100,000 coronavirus cases in total) for September can be cut. We are reaching our first peak… We started testing from 200 people and it is now over 17,667 and will be increased to 30,000 a day.
Recovery rate is low in the state?
I think this Punjabi attitude of ‘everything is fine’ — and people are going to hospital too late and the first 72 hours critical. Our figures show that 3 per cent of deaths in Punjab are of people who died at home. These things should not happen. Our major cities are under lockdown and we have added 170 towns but the fact is that villages are still relatively free… Since March 22, 4,000-6,000 people are fined everyday for not wearing masks.
Impact on industry due to lockdown?
By and large, money is short and there was a deficit of Rs 35,000 crore in the first quarter; 50 per cent of revenue is gone because we had to shut down the industries, liquor shops. Liquor used to get us Rs 6,000 crore in revenue. I have 20 lakh labourers from other states and all wanted to go home.
But now they want to come back and industries have started operations and we are putting checks and balances to ensure social distancing. I have put up a committee under Montek Singh Ahluwalia (former planning commission deputy chairman) to come up with a plan on how we can get the industry moving after this lockdown period.