Punjab’s former chief minister Amarinder Singh on Saturday lashed out at the Congress amid the political crisis and accused it of spreading “preposterous lies… in a clear bid to cover up their mishandling of the crisis in the state.” Singh also said that Congress is “in total state of panic” ahead of the legislative assembly elections.

Responding to the party spokesperson Randeep Surjewala who claimed that Singh lost the support of 78 MLAs, out of 79 MLAs, Singh said, it is a “comedy of errors.” The statement came soon after Surjewala shared the numbers and said, “When a chief minister loses the trust of the MLAs, he should step down from the post.” “If we wouldn’t have changed the CM, it would have been termed as a dictatorship.”

In his statement, Singh also targeted Sidhu with whom he was locked in a long battle over various differences and said, “It seems the entire party has become imbued with Navjot Singh Sidhu’s sense of comic theatrics.” “Next they will claim that 117 MLAs wrote to them against me!” he further said in a jibe against Surjewala.

Singh further said that the Congress was “in a total state of disarray, and the crisis seemed to be escalating by the day, with a large majority of its senior leaders completely disenchanted with the party functioning.”

“The fact of the matter was that the 43-odd MLAs who had signed the said letter had been forced to do so under duress,” he clarified.

Amarinder Singh also claimed that the “entire affair was orchestrated by Navjot Singh Sidhu and his aides.” “I have won every election in Punjab since 2017. It was not the people who’d lost trust in me… Don’t know why they’re allowing him to dictate terms even now,” he said.

The outburst of Singh comes in the backdrop of a series of political developments taking place in Punjab ahead of the legislative assembly elections. After two months of Sidhu’s elevation as chief of Punjab Congress, the cricketer-turned-politician resigned from his post on September 28. It was done even as Singh continued to express his opposition to the party’s decision.

Meanwhile, Amarinder Singh, who resigned from the post of chief minister last month, said on Thursday that he will leave the party but will not join the BJP.