Bajwa calls for Cong unity against ‘new threat’ AAP

Punjab Congress chief Partap Singh Bajwa made a unity pitch within the party by describing the AAP as the new threat to the Congress in the state, after its stupendous success in Delhi. His bitter intra-party rival and Congress deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, Capt Amarinder Singh, meanwhile appealed to the Congress rank and file not to feel demoralised even though the results were “quite disappointing”.

Punjab Congress chief Partap Singh Bajwa made a unity pitch within the party by describing the AAP as the new threat to the Congress in the state, after its stupendous success in Delhi. His bitter intra-party rival and Congress deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, Capt Amarinder Singh, meanwhile appealed to the Congress rank and file not to feel demoralised even though the results were “quite disappointing”.

PPCC-chief-Partap-Singh-Bajwa

In his statement, Bajwa called upon Congressmen to meet the new challenge which, he said, would come not from the SAD-BJP combine but from the AAP, “which represents the thinking of the common man”. He said the need of the hour, therefore, was to unite, as factionalism had become the bane of the party over the years.

He added that “Narendra Modi wave” had “petered out” in less than a year and people had “rejected the communal agenda of the BJP”. “They had lost faith in the Congress to provide an alternative. The Congress would hit back with new gusto but would have to put up a united front. The BJP was in alliance with the SAD but even deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, who claims to be a master strategist, could not help the alliance win any seats.” He claimed that campaign by the Punjab Congress against drugs “proved to be the last nail in the coffin” of the four Akali candidates in Delhi.