Congress should name CM face: Capt Amarinder Singh

Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh has asked his party high-command to declare the chief ministerial candidate before the 2017 state elections for tactical advantage.

Terming Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener Arvind Kejriwal an outsider to Punjab and its current ruling combine unlikely to win again, Amarinder told the media on Friday here that the Congress needed to use this edge in the polls. Giving example of Uttar Pradesh (another state heading for early-2017 polls), where Sheila Dikshit is party’s CM candidate, he said even regional parties had announced their CM faces. “It is not mandatory in our party,” said Amarinder, “but has become necessary to let people know whom they are voting.”

Ruling out possibility of the AAP’s winning Punjab, Amarinder said the state had enough able leaders within.

Capt: Ad-hoc GOC-in-C sign of indecision

Captain Amarinder Singh said there could not be a worse example of indecisiveness than the central government’s appointing an ad-hoc Western Army commander. “An officiating general officer commanding-in-chief (GOC-in-C),” he said, “was unprecedented”. He blamed it on over-centralisation of the powers at the PMO.

Also read: Lt Gen Cheema made interim commander of Western Army