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Focus on your constituency, help Covid-hit people: Preneet to Navjot Sidhu
The Patiala MP’s subtle dig at Sidhu, who has been targeting Amarinder on social media, about the latter’s absence from his Amritsar East assembly constituency came a day after he stuck to his guns before the central team
Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh’s detractors continued to target him before the three-member committee set up by the Congress to resolve the infighting in the party even as his MP wife Preneet Kaur advised former minister Navjot Singh Sidhu to focus on his assembly constituency and help fight coronavirus.
Preneet, who met the central panel headed by leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge in New Delhi on Wednesday, said that Sidhu has the responsibility to look after his constituency during the pandemic. “He needs to put in strong effort to ensure that his area and Punjab are safe. If he has any grievances, he should take them up with the chief minister and the party high command,” she told reporters after her one-on-one meeting with the committee on the day posters surfaced in Amritsar that Sidhu was “missing” from his assembly constituency. All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary in-charge of Punjab affairs Harish Rawat and former MP Jai Prakash Agarwal are the other members of the committee.
The Patiala MP’s subtle dig at Sidhu, who has been targeting Amarinder on social media, about the latter’s absence from his Amritsar East assembly constituency came a day after he stuck to his guns before the central team. The former minister has not been seen in his area for weeks and is spending much of his time in the chief minister’s assembly constituency, Patiala.
Sidhu, who has consistently accused Amarinder of shielding the Badal family and blamed him for the botched-up probe in the Kotkapura police firing case, had told the media after his one-on-one meeting on Tuesday that his stand remains unchanged.
Capt to meet panel today
Amarinder is scheduled to meet the central committee, which has already held meetings with most ministers, MPs, MLAs and other party leaders over the past three days, on Thursday. Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi has also been calling up the state leaders, including ministers and MLAs, for direct feedback on the internal fight in the state unit.
Preneet was among the 30-odd party leaders, including cabinet minister Balbir Singh Sidhu, Rajya Sabha MPs Partap Singh Bajwa and Shamsher Singh Dullo, MLA Surjit Singh Dhiman and Kulbir Singh Zira and former state unit president Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, who met the panel.
Detractors speak their mind
Bajwa conveyed to the committee that party workers in Punjab were feeling demoralised because they had been ignored and power was concentrated in the hands of bureaucrats. “The party needed to make the chief minister get rid of retired bureaucrats appointed in government organisations and appoint party leaders in their place, remove the advocate general, and correct the case combination by giving adequate representation to SC, OBC and Hindu leaders in the cabinet and other key positions to galvanise the cadres,” he said during his 45-minute meeting with the panel.
Dullo also alleged political patronage to mining, transport and liquor mafia in the state, claiming that a large number of party MLAs and other leaders have direct or indirect business interests in these sectors. “Traditional Congress leaders have been sidelined and party-hoppers from SAD and other political parties were being promoted. Similarly, Hindu leadership is also on the margins in the party now. I spoke my mind before the committee,” he said after the meeting.
Both Bajwa and Dullo have been carrying out no-holds-barred attacks on Amarinder for the past two years and upped the ante further following the legal setback in the 2015 Kotkapura police firing case. Dhiman is also learnt to have been unsparing in his criticism. Advocating leadership change, he blamed the CM’s style of working for the government’s failure to fulfil its poll promises. Besides pressing for strict action in sacrilege cases, some MLAs also complained to the committee about bureaucrats calling the shots and the chief minister’s inaccessibility.
