Captain Amarinder Singh, Navjot Sidhu aides spar as Punjab crisis deepens

Four cabinet ministers and around two dozen MLAs declared they didn’t have faith in the CM’s ability to fulfil pending poll promises but stopped short of demanding his resignation.

The Congress government in Punjab was thrown into fresh turmoil on Tuesday as ministers close to state unit chief Navjot Singh Sidhu rebelled against chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh, and leaders loyal to the latter demanded the ouster of Sidhu’s advisers over their controversial remarks.

Sidhu was not present at the meeting but the leaders said they will discuss the matter with him before leaving for Delhi.

The factional fight appeared to end an uneasy truce between Sidhu and Singh brokered by the Congress leadership after months of tense negotiations and mirrored a similar tussle for control of the party that broke out in May. Punjab goes to the polls early next year.

Four cabinet ministers and around two dozen MLAs declared they didn’t have faith in the CM’s ability to fulfil pending poll promises but stopped short of demanding his resignation.

“We have lost faith in him (Singh), but changing the CM is the prerogative of the party high command,” said minister for jails and cooperation Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa after meeting the lawmakers at rural development minister Tript Rajinder Bajwa’s official residence in Chandigarh.

The meeting was attended by technical education minister Charanjit Singh Channi, water resources minister Sukhbinder Sarkaria, Punjab Congress general secretary (organisation) Pargat Singh, and around two dozen legislators.

The disgruntled leaders also authorised a five-member delegation — four cabinet ministers and Pargat Singh, all known detractors of Singh — to meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi and apprise her of their sentiment at the earliest.

The disgruntled ministers also spoke to All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary in-charge of Punjab affairs Harish Rawat. They will travel to Dehradun on Wednesday to meet Rawat before heading to Delhi.

Sidhu was not present at the meeting but the leaders said they will discuss the matter with him before leaving for Delhi. The Congress has 80 MLAs in Punjab.

Channi told reporters that the MLAs who assembled in Chandigarh were worried about unfulfilled poll promises made by the Congress before the 2017 assembly elections. “A lot of promises have been fulfilled, but those promises (the implementation of) which may lead to friction with the opposition remain unfulfilled,” he said.

He said that issues were not getting resolved the way the Congress wanted. “We no longer trust that these issues will be resolved. Therefore, we are seeking time from the party high command for a meeting, and we will meet them and put forth our issues so that Punjab’s issues can be resolved,” said Channi, flanked by Randhawa, Bajwa and Pargat SIngh.

Sidhu later met some of these ministers and MLAs at the party’s state headquarters here. “Got a call from Tripat Bajwa ji asking for an emergency…Met him along with other colleagues at the PPCC office. Will appraise the high command of the situation (sic),” he tweeted after meeting them.

Hours later, Singh and his loyalists hit back, demanding action against two advisors of Sidhu, Malvinder Singh Mali and Pyare Lal Garg, who stirred a row on Sunday with their controversial comments on Kashmir.

Five cabinet ministers and one MLA close to Singh called for strong action against Mali and Garg for their “patently anti-national and pro-Pak comments”.

“The statements of both these newly appointed advisers of Punjab Congress president Navjot Sidhu were clearly against India’s interests, and detrimental to national security,” said cabinet ministers Brahm Mohindra, Vijay Inder Singla, Bharat Bhushan Ashu, Balbir Singh Sidhu and Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, along with MLA Raj Kumar Verka in a statement.

Tuesday’s bitter verbal war is a throwback to a crisis that engulfed the Congress in May, when Sidhu rallied Singh’s detractors and publicly accused the CM of enabling corruption. Tensions between 79-year-old Singh and Sidhu had simmered since the latter quit the state cabinet after the chief minister changed his portfolio in 2019.