"People will not get divided on religious lines, BJP will face defeat": Punjab Congress chief

Ludhiana (Punjab) [India], May 26 (ANI): Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring on Sunday said that people in Punjab will not fall for the Bharatiya Janata Party's trap of being divided on religious lines.
Warring questioned the contributions of the BJP towards Punjab and said that even after giving maximum sacrifices for the nation since independence, the state got nothing in return.
"The more PM visits Punjab, the more people will vote against him. I want to ask PM and Amit Shah what have they given to Punjab. They took the lives of 700 farmers. We are part of this country, Punjabis have given maximum sacrifice for this nation. Be it during the struggle for Independence, or wars in 1965 and 1971. But we never received any special package, our industry got nothing. No AIIMS given to us. Chandigarh which was our right, you gave space to establish Haryana Assembly there," the Punjab Congress chief told ANI.
"If you want to divide people on religion, people of punjab won't get divided on religious lines," he added.
He further said that BJP did nothing for farmers in the last 10 years.
"Where is he addressing the concerns of farmers. If he becomes Prime Minister for the third time he won't allow us to come out from our homes. Issues of farmers have not been addressed in the last 10 years," said Warring while stating that Centre should take action to eradicate drug problem in Punjab.
In Punjab, voting for its 13 seats will take place in a single phase, with the seventh and final phase on June 1 seeing voting in Gurudaspur, Amritsar, Khadoor Sahib, Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Nandpur Sahib, Ludhiana, Fatehgarh Sahib, Faridkot, Firozpur, Bathinda, Sangrur, and Patiala constituencies.
Amarinder Singh Raja Warring will face BJP's Ravneet Singh Bittu who recently quit Congress in March.
Ravneet Singh Bittu is the grandson of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh and the son of former Punjab minister Tej Parkash Singh.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, Bittu defeated Simarjeet Singh Bains from the Lok Insaaf Party by 76,372 votes. In 2014, he defeated the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) Harvinder Singh Phoolka with a margin of 19,709 votes.
The 2024 Lok Sabha elections are being held in seven phases running from April 25 to June 1. The counting and results will be declared on June 4. (ANI)