Former Chief Minister and Congress candidate from Amritsar Capt Amarinder Singh today asked his BJP rival Mr Arun Jaitely whether he had included or excluded Amritsar parliamentary constituency from the BJP's now famous "160 club".
In a statement issued here today, Capt Amarinder revealed that it was a well known fact that Mr Jaitely was one of the chief architects of the BJP's "160 club" which did not want the party to win more than 160 seats to queer pitch for Mr Narendra Modi.
He pointed out, people like Mr Jaitely and few others hope that in case the party got less than 160 seats it will be difficult for Mr Modi to become the PM. "People of Amritsar would like Mr Jaitely to clarify these charges against him", he said, while adding, "a man who cannot be loyal to his own party and own leader cannot be loyal to people of Amritsar either".
However, the former Punjab Chief Minister asserted that Mr Jaitely and his club will not need to really work that hard to keep the party tally below 160 and assured him that he would guarantee that BJP will not cross 150 seats even.
The senior Congress leader also had a dig at the Akalis, the self professed and proclaimed patrons of Mr Jaitely, saying that they were trying to show themselves to be more loyal than the king.
He advised the Akali leaders to better first ask Mr Jaitely whether he was really interested and serious about winning Amritsar lest it subverted his "160 club" plan. "In any case he is not going to win from Amritsar and hence my advice to you is not to try to be more loyal than the king", he advised the Akalis.
Capt Amarinder said, it was perfectly in accordance with the "160 club" game plan that the senior leaders of the party like Mr LK Advani, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi and Mr Jaswant Singh were humiliated and being pruned out.
He also referred to Mr Jaitely's recent criticism of his own party colleague Mr Jaswant Singh who had given his life and blood to the BJP and was now humiliated so shamelessly without having any respect for their seniority, contribution and long standing association with the party.