Chandigarh, Oct 14 (IANS): Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Wednesday slammed the BJP for its provocative actions in the wake of an attack on its state chief Ashwani Sharma's motorcade, for which the police have already identified several farmer union members as being responsible.
Slamming Sharma's baseless accusations against the Punjab Congress, the Chief Minister said the BJP state unit President seemed hell-bent on spreading false propaganda to promote the interests of his party.
These actions were clearly aimed at diverting the attention of the people from the farmers' angst against the BJP over the farm laws, he said.
The Chief Minister asserted that the people of Punjab, including the farmers, will not be misled by these irresponsible statements and actions, which the BJP's Punjab leadership was resorting to with total lack of concern about the possible aggravation of the Covid pandemic they could lead to in the state.
The farmers, said Amarinder Singh, were angry and anguished at the farm laws enacted by the BJP-led Central government, and instead of empathising with them and conveying their pain to the party high command, the BJP state leadership was trying to exploit the incident of October 12 to earn political brownie points.
Contrary to the falsehoods Sharma was trying to spread, the state has been taking all steps to ensure the security of the BJP leaders amid the farmers' protests, he added.
After the incident, Sharma's security has been beefed up and a total of 16 police personnel, including commandos, are deployed with him currently, he said.
In fact, the Chief Minister said, all BJP leaders and office-bearers in the state have been provided adequate security for the past 8-10 days since the farmers' agitation gained momentum in the state.
DGP Dinkar Gupta was personally in touch with Sharma and has also directed all district police chiefs to stay connected with BJP leaders for advance information about visits and programmes of the BJP MPs, MLAs and leaders so that adequate security arrangements can be made, he said.
Meanwhile, Governor V.P. Singh Badnore in a communique to Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan sought a complete report on the attack on the BJP leader in Hoshiarpur town.
He said immediate action should be taken to book the culprits and proceed against them as per the law.