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Channi camp skips Warring show as rift persists in Punjab Congress
Senior leaders, including Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria, Tripat Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Rana Gurjeet Singh, and Pargat Singh stayed away from the event
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Infighting continues to roil the Punjab Congress, and was glaringly visible on Tuesday as a key faction led by Jalandhar MP and former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi stayed away from a major party protest called by state chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring in Chandigarh.
The absence of Channi, and other leaders aligned with him, from the party event came despite the Congress high command taking series of steps, including replacing Bhupesh Baghel with Sachin Pilot as Punjab affairs in-charge, to rein in the rift that threatens to derail party’s revival prospects ahead of the high-stakes assembly polls due early next year.
Senior leaders, including Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria, Tripat Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Rana Gurjeet Singh, and Pargat Singh stayed away from the event. Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa was in Delhi holding meetings with party leadership.
The friction in the state unit has festered since July 1, when central leaders chose to retain Warring as head of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee. The Channi group has repeatedly demanded a leadership overhaul, boycotting state committee events for nearly three months and running parallel programs across the state. The tensions had already spilled into the open during the party’s grassroots mobilsation drive in August, where rival cadres exchanged slogans against each other.
Before his exit, outgoing in-charge Baghel had also faced a cold shoulder from dissenters after he rallied behind Warring and said that the party would not declare any chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming polls.
Cong workers face water cannons
In Chandigarh, Warring led hundreds of party leaders and workers on a march toward chief minister Bhagwant Mann’s official residence to gherao it over the “deteriorating law-and-order situation and rampant drug menace”. Police halted the march at barricades, deploying water cannons multiple times to disperse the crowd.
Addressing the gathering, Warring claimed governance has collapsed under the AAP dispensation, He said the so-called ‘Sikhya Kranti’ of the AAP government has proven to be a “complete failure,” charging that there is a huge debt on the state, and criticised the state government for “heavy borrowings.”
Warring also condemned the chief minister’s approach towards the government employees by “denying them their rightful dearness allowance.” Not only was the government refusing them the DA, it was also treating them like its enemies, he said.
Warring also hit out at AAP over the induction of gangster-turned-politician Gurpreet Singh Sekhon, questioning how a party claiming to fight crime could give political patronage to a convicted offender out on suspended sentence. He further alleged a tacit pact between the BJP and AAP leadership to divide anti-BJP votes in Gujarat in exchange for support in Punjab.
Urging workers to look beyond internal differences, Warring reiterated his unwavering loyalty to the party and appealed for unity to defeat the AAP government in the upcoming elections.
All district Congress committee presidents participated in the protest. Congress MP from Amritsar Gurjit Singh Aujla, Rana KP Singh, Amit Vij, Balbir Sidhu, Brahm Mohindra, Kuljeet Nagra, Shamsher Singh Dullo, Gurjeet Aujla, Dalvir Goldy, Dr Raj Kumar Verka and others were also present.
