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Ex-minister Balbir Sidhu says Congress scripted its own defeat in Punjab
Balbir Sidhu is the latest Congress leader to speak on the party’s rout in Punjab, says Cong gave power to turncoats, opportunists
Chandigarh : Senior Congress leader and former minister Balbir Singh Sidhu on Sunday blamed the party leadership for the crushing defeat in the 2022 assembly polls in Punjab.
Sidhu said the Congress leadership scripted its own defeat by giving power to turncoats and opportunists who were alien to the Congress, its history and its culture. “The decline of the party’s prospects started the day when Sunil Jakhar, a dyed-in-the-wool Congressman, was replaced (as the state unit president) by an outsider Navjot Singh Sidhu, who had joined the Congress just four years ago,” the three-time former MLA from Mohali said in a statement, giving his first reaction on the election results without mincing words.
The former health minister is the latest Congress leader to speak on the party’s rout in Thursday’s results and train his guns at Navjot Sidhu. Former deputy chief minister Sukhjinder Randhawa, who scraped through by 466 votes in Dera Baba Nanak, had also on Saturday hit out at Navjot Sidhu and Jakhar for the defeat in assembly polls.
Jakhar, while mocking Randhawa’s remarks, also said the party should decide on Navjot Sidhu as the state Congress chief – if he is to be removed or replaced. “We need to put a fight and save the Congress,” he said. These statements are an indication of fresh trouble brewing in the party.
Removing Capt as CM was last straw on camel’s back
Asserting that the Congress committed one blunder after another, Balbir Sidhu also said that removing Capt Amarinder Singh as the chief minister proved to be the last straw on the camel’s back, which eventually led to complete collapse of the party and the government. The third mistake was refusing to appoint Jakhar as the chief minister despite the support of an overwhelming majority of party MLAs just because he was a Hindu, despite Congress having a pure secular character and culture, he said.
“If the Congress had believed in politics of religion, then Giani Zail Singh wouldn’t be the President, Dr Manmohan Singh wouldn’t be the Prime Minister and Buta Singh wouldn’t be the home minister,” the former minister said. This all was followed by appointment of Charanjit Singh Channi, who again was not a real Congressman as he had tried his luck with the SAD and the People’s Party of Punjab before joining the Congress, he said, adding that the Congress and the government was handed over to rank outsiders.
Party denied tickets to veteran leaders
He said the way the party arbitrarily denied tickets to senior and veteran leaders like Amrik Dhillon, Jagmohan Kang, Ajaib Singh Bhatti and Kewal Dhillon was yet another fatal mistake by the Congress leadership. “It was strange and surprising that the party looked like it was in a race with itself in repeating one blunder after another to cause its own doom,” he said.
The former minister said that just before Navjot Sidhu’s appointment as the state Congress president, everyone was of the unanimous view that the Congress would repeat itself in 2022. “But the countdown for doom started the day Navjot took over as the state unit president,” he said, while adding, the party made no efforts to reign him in. He said the way the PCC president and the CM indulged in open war of words, putting the party in a state of “civil war” left the field wide open for the opposition. “People got fed up with this civil war and they decided to teach us a lesson,” he said.
Foul language during polls
Balbir Sidhu further said that the language used by Navjot Sidhu and Channi during the campaign antagonised a large section of the electorate, citing the instances where Sidhu addressed (SAD candidate) Anil Joshi as a “kaala Brahmin” and Channi used derogatory language against the migrant population which, according to him, antagonized these communities and they voted against the Congress not only in Punjab, but also in Uttar Pradesh.
