Chandigarh, May 19 (IANS) Former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Thursday congratulated former Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar for joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), saying that the "right man is in the right party".
He said more leaders are likely to desert the sinking ship of the Congress in the coming days.
In a statement issued here, Amarinder Singh said the exodus from the Congress will continue and the party is headed for an imminent doom.
"Honest and upright leaders like him (Sunil) cannot breathe in the Congress anymore," he said, adding, "That space (in the Congress) has become too stifling and too suffocating."
The former Chief Minister recalled how within the span of less than a year, the Congress has completely collapsed in Punjab due to one wrong decision.
"I was the Chief Minister, while Sunil was the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee President, and everything was going so well. We were headed for repeating the government just less than a year ago," he said, adding, "One wrong decision by the leadership proved suicidal for the party that is now staring at its own doom in Punjab and elsewhere in the country."
Calling the reports of alleged snooping on prominent citizens using Israeli Pegasus spyware as "baseless", the ruling BJP on Monday said there is not a single shred of evidence so far that links either the central government or the party to this controversy.
Congress MPs from both Houses had met on Sunday afternoon at Rajya Sabha member Pratap Singh Bajwa's residence to discuss the issues related to Punjab and sought an appointment with Gandhi.
Apart from reviewing the security arrangements in the national capital, the Delhi Police have also strengthened the security in and around the Red Fort ahead of the Independence Day.
Police said acting on a specific information, Budgam Police along with the Army's 53 RR and 43 BN of the CRPF arrested one local terrorist linked with proscribed terror outfit LeT and recovered incriminating materials, arms and ammunition including one Chinese pistol, one magazine, eight live pistol rounds from his possession.
As the Pegasus spyware scandal unravelled within and outside Parliament, he termed it a "shocking assault" on India's democratic polity by the Union government, which had compromised the national security with "this blatantly disgraceful act".
The shocking incident happened on Sunday when the lawyer, Satyadev Joshi and his associate Ankit Tandon had gone to survey a land for a client in Dahisar suburb.
