Kejriwal's lies re-run of false 2017 promises spree: Punjab CM

Chandigarh, March 22 Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Monday ripped into Arvind Kejriwal's claims and allegations, slamming the AAP chief's "lies" as a "re-run of the spree of false promises and cheap attacks on the Congress he had resorted to back in the 2017 polls".

"The people of Punjab were wise to your deceptions then, and can see through them again now," he said in a hard-hitting response to Kejriwal's criticism of his government and the Congress.

"Kejriwal's barefaced lies will be exposed again, just as they had been exposed in the 2017 Assembly polls," Amarinder Singh added, slamming the Aam Aadmi Party national convenor's "fabrications and deceptions".

Trashing his Delhi counterpart's allegation of the Congress government in Punjab failing to fulfill its poll promises, the Chief Minister said it was "ridiculous to compare his government's track record of over 84 per cent promises implemented with the Delhi government's pathetic track record of less than 25 per cent of AAP's 2015 manifesto commitments fulfilled in 2020".

"If this is the Delhi model you (Kejriwal) are promising Punjab, then my people are better off without it," he said.

Instead of indulging in deceitful claims and talking of 'badla', Kejriwal should focus on Delhi, which is still waiting for him to fulfill even 50 per cent of his poll promises, said Amarinder Singh.

"Data available in public domain shows AAP's wretched credentials when it comes to delivering on its promises," he said, indicating the plethora of independent analyses ahead of the 2020 Delhi Assembly polls, which had showed that at the end of its five-year term, the Kejriwal government had fulfilled only 11 of its 70 promises.

Slamming Kejriwal's "dramatics" at a mahapanchayat on Sunday, Amarinder Singh said: "Unlike Delhi's voters, those in Punjab are not deceived by such hyperbole and have trust in their own eyes and in what they can see on the ground."

It was a matter of record, said the Chief Minister, that despite Delhi Congress leader Ajay Maken's repeated questioning on the issue, the AAP government in Delhi had failed to show its progress on its lakhs of jobs' promise of 2015.

Even the much-touted Delhi Skill Mission had failed to take off, he claimed, adding that, as per figures listed in one of the analysis, the Kejriwal government had given jobs to 102 people in 2016, 66 people in 2017, and 46 people until April 2018.

"You really have no shame if you can come and criticise my government's employment record with such data on Delhi," he added.

( With inputs from IANS )