Amarinder questions probe against wife, son

The Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh on Monday questioned the timing and motives of the Centre in pursuing the issue of purported foreign accounts of his wife Preneet Kaur and son Raninder Singh even after a Swiss bank authority “certified” that they did not hold such accounts.

“The purported accounts shown against the name of his wife and son, had ‘zero’ balance. How is it possible to have an account that too in a Swiss Bank without any balance?” he asked.

“This was despite the fact that the HSBC authorities had certified five years ago that they (Kaur and Raninder) did not have any account anywhere with it (the HSBC)”, he said.

He alleged, “since the Punjab Assembly elections were not far, the BJP and the Akalis wanted to keep the issue alive during the elections, although they know it well that it will not stand anywhere in the court of law”. He also announced that he would be seeking quashing of the complaint in the higher court as it had no basis.

“We cannot take it lying down and won’t allow ourselves to be blackmailed and we will call their bluff” Singh said, while pointing out that the issue was being deliberately raised from time to time to “malign him” and his family in the election year as they had nothing against him.