Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu slams AAP’s CM face drive

CHANDIGARH: Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu on Monday accused Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo Arvind Kejriwal of faking data while choosing Bhagwant Mann as his party’s chief ministerial face for the Punjab assembly polls through a tele-poll.
Addressing a press conference, Sidhu dubbed AAP’s survey a “scam”. Questioning the procedure adopted by AAP to get over 21 lakh responses for its CM-pick, Sidhu said Kejriwal was trying to be the “uncle” of physicist Albert Einstein and mathematician Shakuntala Devi.
Sidhu added he had written to the Election Commission, flagging what he called "fake propaganda”. He said, “Elections are not entertainment or talent hunt shows. Elections are the heart and spirit of Indian democracy and they should be respected in letter and spirit. AAP is in the race to win the elections by deceit, went a bit too far and created an illusion and fake perception of their party and leaders and misled the public. Kejriwal should make the call record public.”
He added AAP launched a “private number to host the fake contest” to choose its CM candidate by popular vote. They claimed to have announced the CM candidate by popular vote of 21,59,475 responses received within a span of four days whereas the population of state of Punjab is over 2 crore. That does not even make their candidate any viable option, he said.
“To even believe they received such responses, the maths of it doesn't add up. In general circumstances, the toll-free number can still hold some load, but there is no way a private number can hold so many responses. Simple logic is: let’s assume they were receiving responses 24X7, then on an average they would have received and recorded 8 to 10 responses per second which is not humanly possible. On a normal number, it can take up to more than 2,000 people and at least a Rs 25-30-crore expense is required to do this exercise,” said Sidhu.“As per the calculation, if a call took a minimum of 15 seconds, then in one day, AAP can attend or record only approximately 5,760 responses. Similarly, in four days there can be a total of 23,040 responses or calls at best. Keeping in mind, they did not have any automated response system either which can expedite response clocking,” he claimed.
Sidhu accused AAP of creating a “fake campaign with a hybrid model of fake news and fake, deceptive talent show.”
“It is in violation of the model of code of conduct and the Election Commission should take strict note of it. AAP and Kejriwal should apologise for this scam from voters of Punjab and he should leave politics,” said Sidhu.
Sidhu is ‘drama queen’: Raghav Chadha
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Punjab affairs co-incharge Raghav Chadha on Monday called Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu ‘drama queen’ of Punjab politics. Reacting to Sidhu’s charge about AAP’s tele-poll to choose its CM face, Chadha said even in AAP’s survey, only 3.5% people voted for Sidhu, but Bhagwant Mann was the first choice of 93.3% people, because he had been raising the voice of people and their issues in Parliament. “The purpose of Sidhu’s press conference was to divert the attention of people from the issue of sand mafia and money and properties seized in ED raids,” he said.