Sonia didn’t speak to Capt for 6 months

Chandigarh, February 22

State Congress chief Capt Amarinder Singh has said his government in 2004 had passed the state law terminating the Punjab’s water-sharing pact with neighbouring states without consulting the Congress president Sonia Gandhi and had acutely upset her.

An upset Sonia did not meet him for six months after his government passed the law, said Capt Amarinder during the launch of his biography “The People’s Maharaja” here on Tuesday.

The Supreme Court had last November struck down the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004, as “unconstitutional”.

“Mrs Gandhi wouldn’t see me. She didn’t see me for six months as the Chief Minister. The friends then told her either sack him (Amarinder) or see your CM. So, she eventually called me and, sitting across the table, asked me ‘why did you do this (passed the Termination Act)’. I said this was necessary for Punjab.

“Then she said why didn’t you ask me, to which I said had I asked you, would you have said yes. To this, she said no… Then I told her I did it because it was in the interest of Punjab,” the Congress leader said.

The former CM said he told the Congress president that he passed the Act because he did not want the Gandhi family to suffer more from the malady of terrorism. — PTI