CHANDIGARH: Shiromani Akali Dal general Secretary and former Union Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal said here Monday that the new nomenclature the Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh's proposed road show as " Punjab Fateh March" ('Conquer Punjab March') clearly revealed a mindset of foreign invaders and brought back memories of the aborted attempts of Ahmad Shah Abdali to conquer Punjab.

"Amarinder's idea of governance is vanquishing the people rather than serving them. In a democracy, one does not conquer people but secures a mandate for their service. But Amarinder could hardly have found a more accurate expression to give vent to his preference for ruling like a foreign sovereign rather than as a democratically elected representative of the people," said  Badal, adding that the Chief Minister needed to be reminded that not even Abdali could conquer Punjab.
 
Badal said that in any case it was ridiculous for a man already in saddle to undertake to 'conquer Punjab'. "Whom does he want to win Punjab back from?"
 
Badal also accused the Chief Minister of reducing matters of serious polity to the level of "nukkad natak" (street theatre) and  said that the people of Punjab had grown sick and tired of Captain Singh's preference for stuntman-ship over statesmanship.
 
In  a statement here, the Akali leader also referred to the differences within the ruling party over the proposed road show and said ,"The confusion in the Chief Minister's camp over the naming of the proposed road show and his failure to find a suitable name in tune with the democratic spirit forcefully demonstrated how cut off he was from the masses. Both 'road show' and 'Fateh March' were terms that invoked totalitarian and alien mindsets," said Mr. Badal, reiterating that regardless of the name, the Chief Minister's road show would be the last act in a flop circus.
 
Badal also found fault with the new nomenclature of the road show on religious and cultural grounds saying that in Punjab's collective  psyche, Fateh (Victory) belonged always to the Almighty, and not to an arrogant monarch.
 
Describing Amarinder's proposed road show as "a juvenile adventure by a ruler who had remained cut off   from his people for nearly five years", Mr. Badal said that the 38 day 'tamasha' was hardly likely to compensate for five wasted years. "The CM preferred to stay away from the people of Punjab throughout his tenure and this sudden rush of desire to be amidst them now was born of intelligence reports of the ruling party's  impending defeat on the grounds of his inaccessibility alone. But he would do well to remember that theatre was no substitute either for governance or for service of the people.
 
Badal advised the Chief Minster to step out of his high tech luxury "Rath" and move into the narrow and neglected by-lanes of the poor and the suffering in villages and towns.