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Amarinder quits Congress, fresh U-turn by Navjot Singh Sidhu
Amarinder Singh said he was leaving the Congress due to humiliation by the party high command and sidelining of senior leaders, but added that he will not join rival Bharatiya Janata Party.
Former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh on Thursday said that he will end his 52-year-long association with the Congress even as his rival Navjot Singh Sidhu appeared to reverse his decision to quit as state unit chief after a meeting with new CM Charanjit Singh Channi.
Singh said he was leaving the Congress due to humiliation by the party high command and sidelining of senior leaders, but added that he will not join rival Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
His announcement came at Chandigarh airport after he landed from Delhi, where he met Union home minister Amit Shah on Wednesday and national security adviser Ajit Doval on Thursday morning. The 79-year-old leader insisted that both meetings were non-political and focused on security and social issues in Punjab.
“I am not remaining in Congress, I am not joining the BJP,” he said, later also dropping any references to the Congress from his Twitter bio.
The developments came on a day the Congress appeared to inch closer to resolving the turmoil roiling its government in Punjab, after Channi met Sidhu, whose dramatic resignation as Punjab Congress chief on Tuesday plunged the party into crisis again. The party was already reeling from a months-long tussle between Singh and Sidhu.
At the two-hour meeting, Channi and Sidhu agreed on the setting up of a coordination panel for prior consultation on all major policy matters and decisions of the government, said people aware of developments.
The new panel, which is likely to be constituted by Friday, is also expected to take a decision on two appointments by Channi that were opposed by Sidhu, and were said to be catalysts for his resignation.
Cabinet ministers Pargat Singh and Raj Kumar Verka, Punjab Congress working presidents Kuljit Singh Nagra and Pawan Goel, central leader Harish Chaudhary and Amritsar South MLA Inderbir Bolaria were among those present at Punjab Bhawan, where the meeting took place.
“Sidhu will carry on as the state Congress president. All issues raised by him and pending promises that are to be implemented before the elections were discussed in detail and both sides presented their views,” one of them said.
The turmoil in Punjab first erupted in May when Sidhu led a group of legislators to question Singh on unfulfilled poll promises. The central leadership intervened and named Sidhu as state unit chief in July, hoping the appointment and removal of Singh as CM last week would tamp down tensions and improve the party’s chances in next year’s assembly elections.
But the move appeared to create new fault lines in the state Congress unit, and stoke more dissension in Delhi against the central leadership with top leaders demanding organisational changes. Sidhu’s abrupt resignation barely 72 days after being appointed also embarrassed Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who together orchestrated Sidhu’s appointment and Singh’s exit.
Since his resignation, Singh has repeatedly lashed out at Sidhu, calling him unfit for Punjab. He kept up the attack on Thursday. “I had said it before also that Navjot Singh Sidhu is not the right man for Punjab, and if he contests, I will not let him win...,” he told reporters.
Responding to a question about a floor test in the Punjab assembly, he said, “If the party (Congress) loses the majority, then the Assembly Speaker has to take the decision.”
Singh said that during his meeting with Shah and Doval, he raised security concerns as Punjab is a border state. “There are issues related to security, which I raised. For the last four years, I have been seeing what is happening in Punjab. Drones are coming (from across the border) on a daily basis. There are those which are intercepted, but there may be others which one does not know where they are going...all these issues are related to national security.”
In a statement issued earlier in the day, he described Sidhu as a crowd puller who was not a team player. He recalled that he worked with many state unit chiefs and could sort out issues amicably without “indulging in theatrics like Sidhu.” He praised Channi but said that Sidhu was trying to not let him work.
Singh said he was still thinking through his options in the interest of Punjab, whose security was the predominant priority for him. “I will not be treated in this humiliating manner…I will not take such insults,” he said, adding that “his principles and beliefs” did not allow him to stay in the Congress.
He said the party was “going downhill” and senior leaders were being completely ignored and not given a voice, echoing concerns raised by other senior leaders, who wrote to party chief Sonia Gandhi last year, demanding organisational changes.
The Congress rejected the charges. Party treasurer Pawan Bansal said, “Capt. Amarinder Singh’s assertion that he had been humiliated is not correct.”
“The fact is that most of the 74 Congress MLAs did not want him as CM, yet the party continued with him and only repeatedly requested that he should respect party MLAs’ sentiments regarding Bargari sacrilege, electricity costs, and sand mafia.”
