Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Thursday said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is making desperate attempts to falsely project a law and order problem in Punjab for fear of complete annihilation in the upcoming civic polls.

Speaking to reporters after dedicating the Chandigarh-Kharar elevated corridor to citizens, the CM said the state BJP’s request to the Governor for postponement of the civic polls on the baseless grounds of law and order situation collapse showed that the party leadership was in complete panic at the prospect of facing the elections at a time when the people were angry at them over the black farm laws.

Lashing out at the state BJP president Ashwani Sharma for spreading false propaganda to further his party’s political agenda, Amarinder said faced with the wrath of the people of Punjab, Ashwani and his party colleagues were now resorting to desperate measures to wriggle out of the polls.

Dismissing as the BJP state leadership’s charges that the Congress was responsible for the damage to mobile towers, and the resultant loss of studies to the students, the CM asked, “Are we responsible for the farmers’ angst against the BJP?”. “We were not the ones who enacted the farm laws, it was the BJP-led Central government. We, in fact, negated them by passing the amendment Bills in the Assembly,” he added.

Only a couple of incidents of minor damage were reported today, he said, adding that his government would ensure that not a single case of damage takes place in the coming days. The situation was now under control, with most of the damaged towers already repaired, he added.

While these incidents were unfortunate, the fact was that these were happening as a result of the spontaneous outburst of farmers as their genuine demands had not been conceded so far, said the CM, trashing Punjab BJP leaders’ claims that the Centre had accepted the demands of the farmers from the outset.

Had their demands been conceded, the farmers would not have been sitting out in the winter chill at Delhi’s borders, he said, adding that the power-hungry BJP leaders had remained untouched even by the fact that some 50 protesting farmers had died, including some by suicide.