CHANDIGARH, February 23: Several senior Congress leaders and legislators today asked the Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal that before asking the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee President Capt Amarinder Singh to retire, he should tell his father and Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to do so as he was sixteen years older than Capt Amarinder and had aged enough to retire now.
Reacting to Sukhbir Badal’s statement that Capt Amarinder Singh had grown old and he should sit at home, in a joint statement Mr Lal Singh, Jeet Mohinder Sidhu, Jassi Khangura, Sukhpal Singh Khaira, Gurpreet Kangar, OP Soni and Sukh Sarkaria asked him (Sukhbir) that he should give this advice to his father who has already crossed 86 years of age.
The Congress legislators pointed out, while the senior Badal was 86 years old, Capt Amarinder Singh was only 68, sixteen years younger than Mr Badal. They remarked, “even if the age of senior Badal is taken as a yardstick, Capt Amarinder has sixteen more years to work for and serve the people of Punjab”.
They dared Sukhbir Badal to go for the popularity test and find out who was more popular, his father or Capt Amarinder, while he (Sukhbir) himself stands nowhere in competition. But, the legislators added, he is trying to use his father’s old age to gain sympathy vote in the next elections pleading with the electorate that this is going to be his last elections before he retires from active politics.