Former Punjab chief minister Capt. Amarinder Singh, who was recently appointed Punjab Congress president, was given an enthusiastic reception by common citizens and party workers as he drove in to seek blessings at Amritsar’s Golden Temple on Tuesday morning.
Clearly rejuvenated by his appointment, delighted party men continually raised slogans, showered flower petals and burst countless firecrackers blocking every available inch of the ten kilometres from the Raja Sansi International Airport to the sacred Sikh shrine.
The entire city — both old and new Amritsar — was festooned with thousands of giant hoarding, banners and posters all proclaiming the arrival of Amarinder Singh as “the man who would rescue Punjab and its people from the scourge of bad governance and take them to an era of never before prosperity.”
A local Congress leader, Mr Om Prakash Soni, who boasted there were “more than two lakh images of Amarinder Singh” across the Holy City, said the decorations were part of a plan “to give people the sense that the (ruling) Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party Coalition is no longer in control.”
The former chief minister’s return as Congress chief seems to bringing out the best in hitherto violently opposed party factions in the state.