Amarinder’s cheap tactics enhance my popularity: CM

“I welcome the use of derogatory remarks by Amarinder against me as such cheap tactics enhance my popularity all the more,” Badal said in Malerkotla.

Use of unparliamentary language against him and his family members by former Chief Minister only showed that Congress did not have any major issue against the SAD-BJP alliance before the upcoming Assembly polls.

Badal told reporters here that “cheap tactics” used by Singh would not help that party in any way in the coming polls and added that use of such language rather enhanced his popularity among the electorate.

“I have always refrained from using foul language against my political rivals due to which people have given a lot of love to me,” he said.

Badal said that during his long political career,he had raised issues of pubic importance rather than sling mud at his political rivals.

Meanwhile,an unrelenting Amarinder,continued with his attack on Badals during Congress party’s Punjab Bachao Yatra at Kalanaur in Gurdaspur district. “For me a thief would remain a thief. I can at best call a thief a smaller or bigger thief,” Amarinder,who had yesterday labeled Badals as “not only maha chors but also golak chors “,said in Kalanaur. “If it hurts them,I can call them Chorji ,” Amarinder took another jibe.

Addressing the first rally of Punjab Bachao Yatra at Talwandi Sabo on November 1 had made his intentions against Badals clear by using harsh terms for them. When a reporter queried him about the use of unparliamentary language against Badals,Amarinder had retorted back,“Have you ever questioned them when they use foul language against me – 10 times more than what I say?”

Irrespective of the hue and cry over use of derogatory remarks ahead of the 2012 Assembly polls,the ‘intensity of mudslinging’ is yet to reach the levels that prevailed in the 2007 polls when the current Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal used to tell the gatherings that he would release rats in the then Punjab Chief inister Amarinder’s pants.

The Sanjha Morcha in Punjab,led by People’s Party of Punjab (PPP) chief Manpreet Badal,too has joined the slugfest,accusing Amarinder of having only agenda – that of hanging Badals’ upside down – and Badals of pushing Punjab in a state of crisis to further their own interests.