The Congress leadership summoned senior Punjab ministers and lawmakers to Delhi on Tuesday as it stepped up efforts to bridge growing dissidence in the party’s Punjab unit after former minister Navjot Singh Sidhu publicly attacked his rival and chief minister Amarinder Singh
Singh, a two-time chief minister, is scheduled to meet a three-member team set up last month to resolve the differences on Tuesday morning. This is the 79-year-old leader’s second meeting with the panel after the team submitted its report to party chief Sonia Gandhi.
“The Congress president has sought additional information after the report was submitted. We are talking to them,” said one of the committee members on condition of anonymity.
The meeting was fixed before Sidhu attacked Singh in the press. Singh is also likely to meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
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Separately, former party chief Rahul Gandhi called ministers, MPs and MLAs from Punjab to meet in Delhi. Many of these leaders have criticised Singh in recent weeks. He met them on Monday. This included Amritsar MP Gurjeet Singh Aujla and Amritsar West MLA Raj Kumar Verka.
Other leaders, including cabinet ministers Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa and Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria, and legislators Kushaldeep Singh Dhillon, and Sangat Singh Gilzian are likely to meet him on Tuesday afternoon.
{{/usCountry}}Other leaders, including cabinet ministers Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa and Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria, and legislators Kushaldeep Singh Dhillon, and Sangat Singh Gilzian are likely to meet him on Tuesday afternoon.
{{/usCountry}}“These leaders had been seeking time from Rahul ji to meet and he is meeting them. There is nothing unusual about it,” a party leader said on condition of anonymity. Gandhi is also likely to meet Punjab Congress president Sunil Jakhar.
Tensions between Singh and Sidhu have simmered since 2019, when the latter quit the cabinet after his portfolio was changed. But the bitterness mounted in May after the government suffered a legal setback in a 2015 police firing case.
The panel - comprising Rajya Sabha member Mallikarjun Kharge, former Delhi MP Jai Prakash Agarwal and general secretary incharge of Punjab Harish Rawat -- submitted its report to Gandhi after meeting roughly 150 lawmakers.
But tensions flared up again over the weekend after Sidhu attacked Singh and called him a liar.
Some Congress leaders were worried that the continued squabbling may damage the Congress in assembly polls next year, an election it is otherwise expected to win on account of a weakened opposition and widespread farm protests.
Some leaders opposed to Singh started distancing themselves from Sidhu after his public attack. ‘This is not about individuals or positions anyone, but issues such as justice in sacrilege cases, action against drug cartels and cable and sand mafia, scrapping of power purchase agreements. We are not concerned with Captain versus Sidhu and who gets what,” said two cabinet ministers slated to meet Rahul Gandhi.
After their meeting with Rahul Gandhi on Monday, Aujla and Verka refused to talk about their discussions with him but said that Sidhu should not have spoken to the media about party matters. “The tone and language of his remarks do not behove a senior leader like him. The morale of party workers is affected,” Aujla said.
On June 10, HT reported that the panel suggested a compromise formula -- keeping Singh in charge while carving out space for Sidhu in the party -- while cautioning that the party needed to revamp its organisation and reach out to Dalits and backward castes to boost its poll prospects.