Lok Sabha elections 2019: Cong to sound poll bugle with Rahul’s rally in Moga today

Congress president Rahul Gandhi will sound the poll bugle from a rally in Punjab’s Moga on Thursday amid mixed reactions by Punjab Congress leaders to recent airstrike on a Jaish camp in Pakistan’s Balakot .

Though a political rally, Rahul will hand over debt waiver certificates to landless farmers and labourers. But party leaders say the rally theme is likely to be “jawan” not “kisan”.

The party has fielded state local bodies minister Navjot Singh Sidhu to unleash a Twitter war on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by questioning the number of militants killed in the airstrikes.

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Sidhu is likely to set the tone of the rally by taking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent statements. “My party’s stand is my stand. Not just the Congress, BJP ally Shiv Sena and even wives of CRPF men killed in Pulwama are asking the same question. Anyone who questions Modi is being tagged as anti-national. Is this democracy or a dictatorship?” Sidhu questioned.

Other congress leaders — Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath and his Rajasthan counterpart Ashok Gehlot — too have asked the BJP to give proof on its claims. But chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh has broken ranks with the party by saying: “No matter how many were killed, the message has gone out loud and clear – that India will not let the killing of its soldiers and innocent citizens go unpunished”.

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A day before Rahul’s rally, Amarinder tried to put up a unity show. Sidhu, who also holds the tourism portfolio, was not invited for the inauguration of tourism projects at Chamkaur Sahib for which he got ₹20 crore sanctioned from the Centre. After Sidhu refused to accompany the CM, Amarinder and later the CMO officials coaxed him to do so.

More ministers from Amarinder’s cabinet said the party should turn the heat on the BJP at the rally. “The BJP needs to come out with facts. They cannot use our forces for political gains. It is a crime to give action of our brave soldiers a political colour,” rural development minister Tript Rajinder Bajwa, a Captain loyalist, said.

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Jails minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa too said the country has a right to know whether the figures being claimed by BJP leaders are true. “Modi was busy addressing rallies and warmongering at a time he should have been sitting in his office due to escalating tensions on the border,” Randhawa said.

Latching on the statement of Air chief Marshal BS Dhanoa, Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar said how did BJP president Amit Shah claim that “250 terrorists have been killed?”

“Dhanoa said the air force is not in a position to count casualties. How is the BJP counting then? The Congress stands by our soldiers and that is what will be our message from the rally, which will be a tribute to their valour. But the bluff of the BJP needs to be called, in the interest of our forces and our country,” Jakhar said.