Punjab Congress takes dig at Arvind Kejriwal for changing AAP candidates

CHANDIGARH: Punjab Congress today took a jibe at the AAP supremo for changing his party's candidates for the upcoming state polls, saying, "The speed with which Arvind Kejriwal is changing his mind on party nominations for the coming Assembly election reflects his mental instability and is a clear sign of the deep-rooted mess in his party."

Taking a dig at the Delhi Chief Minister for changing the AAP candidate from Dharamkot (Moga), a day after replacing Vinod Kumar from Bhoa, Congress leaders said the "excuses" being put forward by Kejriwal's team for re-allocation of poll tickets smacked of "extreme desperation", with the party leadership "not even bothered about finding a justifiable reason for the sudden changes".

While ticket allocation was an internal matter of any party, the fact that the Dharamkot candidate's replacement came within hours of Kumar levelling serious allegations of "graft" against the AAP leadership was "suggestive" and raised "suspicions of something being drastically wrong" in the party, alleged Punjab Congress leaders Ranjit K Bhatti, Satpal S Mulewal and Ajit Inder Mofar in a statement issued here.

The fact that Kejriwal himself had been "running away from Punjab on some pretext or the other" further endorsed these suspicions, they said.

The AAP had yesterday changed the party's nomination from Dharamkot by replacing Ranjodh Singh Sran with Daljit Singh Sadarpura. Earlier, the party had replaced Kumar with Amarjit Singh from Bhoa constituency in Pathankot district.

According to the Congress leaders, Kejriwal's "desperation" in the face of his party's "imminent wipe out" in the Assembly polls was clearly manifest in his "knee-jerk" reactions regarding ticket allocation as well as his "haphazard" announcements on deputy chief ministership.

They alleged that the AAP leader, "in a desperate bid to woo the Dalits in Punjab", had yesterday announced that the party would have a Dalit deputy chief minister if elected to power.

"Can't he make up his mind?" asked the Congress leaders, claiming that Kejriwal's "contradictory and conflicting" statements were typical of his "unstable character" and his "feeble-mindedness".

They recalled how Kejriwal had "backtracked" on his statement on the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal, before going "completely mute" on the issue.

"How can anyone trust such a man who has no clarity of mind and who doesn't know his own stand on anything?" they asked and reiterated Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh's statement that the AAP and Kejriwal had lost "all moral rights" to contest the Punjab polls.