Chandigarh, May 4
Former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh today returned to the state capital and was back to his usual self, challenging and accusing Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on various counts. He rejected a few personal allegations and took upon himself to protect every Congressman while admitting: “It was wrong if the NOCs for residential projects were cancelled during my tenure”.

Addressing his first press conference after the assembly poll debacle, Amarinder Singh said:“Let Badal point a finger at Congress colleagues. I will defend them." He added that he along with Rajinder Kaur Bhattal and Shamsher Singh Dullo would campaign against the government.

Rejecting the charges levelled against him in the Ludhiana city centre scam, he claimed that he had ordered an inquiry, but did not take any action on the report and left it for the new government to take a decision. He wanted to know why vigilance bureau officials had not come and questioned him. He had not been questioned ever since he came back to India a month ago.'' Badal and his vigilance cannot hold me guilty. It is for the courts to decide'', he said while pointing out that he had no faith in the vigilance bureau.'' Amarinder Singh, when asked why he was announcing Badal guilty when he was the Chief Minister, said: “ We had conducted a 13-month probe before filing a case in court. What investigation have the done?”

Criticising the Badal government, he termed the charges levelled against former director-general of Punjab police S. S. Virk as "atrocious", adding that through these actions, the government was sending a message to bureaucrats to toe the line or face the consequences. Virk was the same man who fought militancy in Punjab, was shot in his face and worked in places where nobody else was ready to work, Amarinder Singh added.

The Congress would launch a movement with the support of the people to counter the ''political vendetta let loose in the state''. Amarinder Singh said the police had booked Congress MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira for allegedly stealing a tarpaulin valued at Rs 5,000. "This is a clear case of political vendetta and victimisation," he added. B. I. S. Chahal would also be defended. Chahal had called him up a few days ago to say that he was in a hospital in Glasgow, Scotland.

The Akalis had gone back on the scrapping of section 5 of the Punjab termination of agreements act, 2004, and had also back-tracked on supplying wheat at a low price to poor families. The income limit of Rs 30,000 per annum meant that people getting even the minimum wage would be excluded. Practically, Badal would just cater to the BPL families, he added.

He claimed that he had told Congress president Sonia Gandhi that he was not interested in becoming the CLP leader, but said he would accept her decision if she made him the PPCC chief. “ I am ready for it,” he said.

Referring to the alleged suicide by a Panchkula builder whose real estate venture was among 36 projects cancelled, he said he could not go into details on the cancellation.

Mediapersons pointed out that the cancellation had been ordered on February 17, when he was still in power, following directions of the Punjab and Haryana high court as his government had given permission to residential projects by reducing the "no-residence zone" between the industrial and residential areas to 100 metres from 500 metres. When pointed out that the chief secretary, during his chief ministership, had given an affidavit in the high court to cancel the NOCs made in violation of the rules, Amarinder Singh claimed he was unaware of the details."I do not remember the details as that (February 17) was a period between the polling and counting," he said. However, if that had happened, it was wrong.

He said he would not quit the Congress and denied having given a “ring” to a Pakistani woman journalist, as alleged in a section of the media.

Amarinder Singh clarified:“ It is absurd to say that I had funded SAD candidates against my own men or had caused the defeat of Dullo”.

Chandigarh, May 4
Denying reports of his marriage with a Islamabad based woman journalist, former Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh today maintained that she was a “friend’’.

“She is a very good friend of mine and will remain’’ so, he said answering questions at a media conference here about his relationship with Aroosa Alam, a Pakistani journalist.

“I have got so many friends in Pakistan, including journalists’’, he said.

When asked whether she was an ISI agent as reported in a section of the press, Capt Singh shot back “Who says so?.’’ “So many journalists from India go to Pakistan, that does not mean that they too are agents’’, he added. — UNI