Former Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Wednesday said Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president Partap Singh Bajwa should quit owning moral responsibility for the party’s debacle in the state besides the latter’s own defeat from Gurdaspur.
Amarinder, who defeated the BJP’s high-profile leader Arun Jaitley from Amritsar by a margin of more than one lakh votes, told Hindustan Times that traditionally all Congress chiefs resigned owning moral responsibility for the party’s poor showing.
While Bajwa lost to the BJP’s Vinod Khanna by more than 1.36 lakh votes, the party under his leadership could win only three of the 13 seats in the state.
“In 2012, when the Congress lost the assembly polls to the SAD-BJP alliance in Punjab, I immediately sent in my resignation to Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
Instead of playing politics over the issue, Bajwa should quit and strengthen the hands of the Congress leadership to decide the next course of action in Punjab.
The Congress leadership needs some cooling-off time to decide what course of action it would take in the state,” added Amarinder.
{{/usCountry}}The Congress leadership needs some cooling-off time to decide what course of action it would take in the state,” added Amarinder.
{{/usCountry}}Asked if the Congress legislators were right in demanding Bajwa’s resignation, Amarinder said they were worried about their future in politics.
“They (Congress MLAs) probably know that under Bajwa’s leadership they cannot win even a single seat from Punjab in the 2017 assembly polls,” he added.