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After assembly poll debacle, Sidhu sacked as Punjab Congress chief
Assembly poll debacle: Apart from sacking Sidhu, Congress high command also asks party chiefs of 4 states to quit from their posts
Less than a year after his appointment as the Punjab Congress chief in July 2021, Navjot Singh Sidhu was asked to resign on Tuesday as a part of party president Sonia Gandhi’s plan to reorganise Congress units of all five states where the party faced humiliating defeats last week.
Along with Sidhu, the high-profile face of the Congress in Punjab, Ganesh Godiyal in Uttarakhand, Ajay Kumar Lallu in Uttar Pradesh, Girish Chodankar in Goa, and N Loken Singh in Manipur have also been asked to put in their papers. This is the first move made by the party to revamp its functioning after it failed to win a single state in the recently concluded assembly elections
The Congress, which ruled Punjab for past five years and was fancying its chances of retaining power, got just 18 of the 117 seats in the assembly polls that were swept by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Sidhu also lost his Amritsar East seat. He was made the state Congress chief on July 18 last year.
The high command’s direction came amid a spiralling blame game in the state Congress. Sidhu, along with outgoing chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi, has been under fire from several party leaders as well as candidates who lost their seats. These leaders, including former deputy CM Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, campaign committee chairman Sunil Jakhar, former ministers Balbir Singh Sidhu and Randeep Singh Nabha and MPs Ravneet Singh Bittu and Gurjeet Singh Aujla, have pinned on them the blame for infighting, which, according to them, proved to be the party’s undoing.
There has also been a growing clamour for his replacement. A senior Congress leader said he found it strange that Sidhu did not send his resignation to the high command as soon as the results came out. “The party leadership’s next challenge is to name his successor. It will need to find someone who has credibility, acceptability and ability to carry everyone along. These are the three fundamental requirements for the post, especially in these challenging times,” he said on condition of anonymity.
The cricketer-turned-politician’s eight-month stint has been a tumultuous one. Considered to be close to former party president Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra till recently, Sidhu, a known detractor of then chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh, was appointed the state chief in July 2021 despite opposition. His elevation, however, escalated matters, triggering a full-blown war in Punjab Congress and Capt was replaced with Channi in September last year. Though the leadership was hopeful that the change of guard would end infighting, there was more trouble as Sidhu and Channi soon fell out. While the party high command, keen to keep its flock together, decided to fight the elections under collective leadership, Sidhu started pressing for naming the chief ministerial face for the elections. Channi also followed suit and was last month named the CM face. The gambit, however, did not work and the party lost.
