Bihar News Desk: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has lashed out at Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi over his ‘UP, Bihar ke bhaiya’ comment.
Lashing out at Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi over his ‘UP, Bihar ke bhaiya’ comment, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar asked, “Do they [Congress] know how much is the contribution of people of Bihar in Punjab and how many are living (there)?”
Criticising Channi over the remark, he said, “I am stunned how people make such statements.”
Earlier, the BJP and the AAP had also slammed Charanjit Singh Channi over the comment and said it was an insult to the people of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
The BJP also attacked Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi who was there with Punjab CM Channi and smiled and applauded while he made the remark. The saffron party said, on one hand, the Congress was fighting the polls in UP and, on the other, insulting the people of the state.
Just days ahead of the polls, Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi said ‘don’t let UP, Bihar ke bhaiya enter Punjab’. While he made the remark.
Charanjit Singh Channi is the Congress’s official chief ministerial candidate in the Punjab election. His CM candidature was announced by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi earlier this month following a tele-voting conducted by the party. He secured more votes than Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu, who was pressing his nomination as the CM candidate for long.
With Channi’s nomination as the chief ministerial candidate, the Congress hopes to win over the Dalit voters of Punjab. Dalits make up more than 32 per cent of Punjab’s population. Channi became the first chief minister from the Dalit community in Punjab, where Jat Sikhs dominated the political space.
Punjab is going to the polls on February 20 for all 117 seats in a multi-cornered contest between the Congress, the Aam Aadmi Party, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and a new alliance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and former Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh’s fledgling outfit Punjab Lok Congress (PLC).
