Amarinder Singh. Tribune file photo

Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, April 27

A day after a television channel ran the slug ‘CaptainBacksModiHardline’ after an interview with him, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh issued a clarification saying that he was against “terrorism and threats to India’s security, much like his Congress party’s stand.

Amarinder Singh said there was “no Modi hardline, only a national security line” that the Congress stood by. He said the news channel’s misinterpretation was “ridiculous” and that he had excoriated Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and his Bharatiya Janata Party for trying to appropriate the armed forces’ actions at Balakot.

He quoted himself as saying in the interview: “The Prime Minister has no business claiming this victory. These kinds of operations have been happening at the Pak border for the last 50 years. Who says this has not been done before? It was done in 1947, 1965, 1971, and during the Kargil operations”.

He claimed he also defended Congress party’s promise of withdrawing AFSPA— saying it was aimed at maintaining peace—as well as to do away with the controversial sedition law. On the latter, he said that there were a number of laws in the country that dealt with such situations.

“We have to de-escalate somewhere,” he said.