Ferozepur, Jan 5 (PTI) After Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Punjab visit was cut short on Wednesday due to a “major security lapse”, BJP leaders hit out at the Congress dispensation in the state, saying a government that cannot ensure law and order has no right to remain in power.
Modi was stuck on a flyover in Punjab for 15-20 minutes on Wednesday due to a blockade by some protesters and returned without attending an event at a martyrs’ memorial.
Reacting sharply, the Union Home Ministry asked the Punjab government to fix responsibility for the serious lapse and take strict action.
The prime minister also could not attend a rally in Ferozepur.
“The prime minister wanted to meet you all, but because of some reasons he is not going to be with us today. The PM has said that these programmes have been postponed and not cancelled,” Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said at the Ferozepur public meeting.
Punjab BJP chief Ashwani Sharma alleged that the state police was instructed to prevent people from attending Modi’s rally and a large number of buses were stranded because of the high-handedness of the police in connivance with the protesters.
“A government which cannot ensure law and order has no right to rule and does not deserve to be given a second chance,” the state BJP chief said at the rally.
“The prime minister was coming here to give something to Punjab. But the state government failed to provide security. This government must go,” Sharma said.
Later at a press conference, he alleged that anarchy prevailed in Punjab.
“The DGP gave the clearance that Modi can travel by road from Bathinda to Ferozepur. Were the police not aware of the problems on which the prime minister was travelling,” he said.
“Without the Punjab government’s connivance and Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi’s involvement, no one can dare to come near the prime minister’s cavalcade,” he alleged.
Echoing similar sentiments, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar termed the incident as a “shameful act”.
He said the “major security lapse” in Punjab smacked of a conspiracy by the Congress.
“It’s a shameful act that Modi’s cavalcade was stopped when he was going to launch developmental projects worth thousands of crores of rupees for the state,” Khattar said in a tweet in Hindi.
“For this, the people of Punjab will never forgive them,” the senior BJP leader said in an apparent reference to the Congress government.
Haryana Home Minister and senior BJP leader Anil Vij called the Channi government “incompetent” as it failed to provide adequate security to the prime minister.
“Incompetent Congress government in border state which could not provide security to Prime Minister of Narendra Modi on his visit to Punjab is a great risk for the nation,” Vij tweeted.
Modi was visiting the poll-bound Punjab after a gap of two years and it was his first trip to the state after his government repealed the three farm laws, which had led to a year-long farmers’ stir at Delhi borders.
The prime minister was scheduled to lay the foundation stones of development projects worth over Rs 42,750 crore, including the Delhi-Amritsar-Katra expressway and a PGIMER satellite centre.
