By Raju William
The verbal duel between poll adversaries Capt Amarinder Singh and former Army chief JJ Singh is showing no sign of truce even after polls are over. One wonders what it takes for the guns to fall silent. May be the result of the Assembly polls on March 11, one hopes so.
But the way both are training guns at each other when ideally they should have been resting in the barracks, it seems as if their bitter verbal confrontation has a history. Do they? “No, in fact, he had felicitated me when I was the Commander of the Western Command at Chandi Mandir for the relief work done by the Army during flood like situation in parts of Punjab”, said Gen. JJ Singh when babushahi.com spoke with him.
“I didn’t start all this. It’s he who started targeting me personally, called me an average cadet and officer who became the Army chief due to seniority factor only,” said the General while reacting to the fresh salvo fired by Capt Amarinder who countered the comments by the ‘senior soldier’ about the prospects of his Congress rival’s defeat from Patiala constituency. The Patiala royal has termed the comments as irrelevant and a sign of desperation, mental instability.
The positive bit of their relations’ history referred to by the former General should be welcomed. It should put a stop to the public spectacle of a former Chief Minister and a former Army chief behaving the way not many would approve. After all, the charges both are hurling at each other have nothing to do with the welfare of the voters in their constituency. Both seem to have discarded the niceties of a healthy political discourse based on mutual respect.
But compulsions of electoral politics continue to hold sway, it seems. They don’t have any history of past acrimony; Gen Singh has settled this. Capt Amarinder may well be expected to reciprocate. Both need to realize that they are indulging in nothing but mud-slinging. It's not for them to finally decide as to who is the winner from Patiala seat. It is the prerogative of the electorate which has sealed its choices in the EVMs. But both have been calling each other the loser even before announcement of the result. Strange, indeed!
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Raju William, Associate Editor
raju.william@gmail.com
Phone No. : +91-98551-01121
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