E-Paper
Navjot Singh Sidhu appointed Congress Punjab unit chief amid rift with CM
The Congress appointed Navjot Singh Sidhu as the president of its Punjab unit on Sunday after days of intense tussle in the state where the chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh resisted the elevation
The Congress appointed Navjot Singh Sidhu as the president of its Punjab unit on Sunday after days of intense tussle in the state where the chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh resisted the elevation.
The party also announced the appointment of four working presidents, Sangat Singh Gilzian, Sukhwinder Singh Danny, Pawan Goel and Kuljit Singh Nagra, which paves the way for a significant revamp of the organisational set-up disbanded by the Congress president in January 2020. The state is scheduled to go to the polls early next year.
“Congress president has appointed Navjot Singh Sidhu as the president of Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee with immediate effect,” according to a statement by the All India Congress Committee. “The party appreciates the contributions of outgoing PCC president Sunil Jakhar,” it added.
The announcement came at the end of a day full of hectic political activity that saw the factions led by Singh and Sidhu holding meetings with supporters to consolidate their positions. The incumbent Punjab Congress president Sunil Jakhar called a meeting of party legislators and district unit chiefs on Monday to draw up a resolution for a solution but the meeting was called off following the formal announcement.
According to a person aware of the developments, it is not clear whether the announcement addresses the factionalism and some in the party fear the rift may widen as Singh continues to be upset with Sidhu, who has attacked the chief minister on several occasions.
Congress leaders aware of discussions on Saturday indicated that a compromise formula had been worked out but it included a public apology that Singh sought from Sidhu for his attacks. Till late Sunday, there was no apology that was made.
Singh had told Congress leader Harish Rawat, who was in Chandigarh to inform him about the changes, that any decision of the Congress president would be acceptable to him, but refused to meet Sidhu till he tendered the apology.
The day began with Sidhu meeting nearly 30 party leaders. Earlier on Saturday, he visited several districts and reached out to MLAs in Patiala, Khanna and Jalandhar to demonstrate the support he was shoring up. He had also met Jakhar in Panchkula and sought his support and guidance.
A former cricketer-turned-politician, Sidhu, a four-time MP, joined the Congress from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) before the 2017 state assembly polls. He was inducted into the state cabinet but shared an uneasy relation with the CM, which eventually culminated in him quitting after Singh shuffled his portfolio in 2019.
The CM had opposed his elevation, citing his lack of seniority in the Congress and community equations as both are Jat Sikhs and belong to Patiala. The appointment of the working presidents is seen to have aimed at addressing some of these objections.
Earlier on Sunday in Delhi, 11 Congress leaders from the state held a meeting and decided to back the CM and sought a meeting with party president Sonia Gandhi to push their case, said people aware of the developments.
The Congress MPs met at the residence of Partap Singh Bajwa, who had earlier met with the CM for dinner at his farmhouse in Mohali on Saturday. They had differences earlier over the Rajya Sabha MP questioning the CM’s decisions, especially the power purchase agreements, rather publicly but have now buried the hatchet.
Barring Ambika Soni and Amar Singh, all the other Punjab MPs were present at the meeting in Bajwa’s residence, including Amarinder Singh’s MP wife, Preneet Kaur. Bajwa later took to microblogging platform Twitter to share images of the meeting. “Discussion with @INCIndia Rajya Sabha & Lok Sabha MPs from Punjab to devise a strategy on farmers’ issues in upcoming monsoon session of the Parliament,” Bajwa tweeted, without mentioning the issue of dissidence in the Punjab Congress.
Rajya Sabha MP Shamsher Singh Dullo, who attended the meeting, said there are a lot of things going on in the state. “We have informed the Congress president and sought time from her for a discussion on Punjab Congress affairs and other burning issues. I spoke to her and have sent a letter to her today, saying that if the party wants to retain power, a Dalit should head the state unit,” he said.
Dullo said they are not opposed to anyone but want the party to maintain caste and religious balance. Apart from the MPs, 10 Punjab MLAs, including three AAP legislators who switched to the Congress last month, also issued a joint statement in CM’s support, urging the Congress leadership not to let him down as “because of his unrelenting efforts, the party stands well entrenched in Punjab”.
In a statement released on behalf of the MLAs by Sukhpal Singh Khaira, who is among the three crossover legislators but is still not a member of the Congress Legislature Party, Sidhu was described as a celebrity and an asset but who, by condemning and criticising his own party and government in public, has only created a “rift in the cadres and weakened it”.
Other MLAs who endorsed the statement were Harminder Singh Gill, Kuldeep Vaid, Fatehjang Bajwa, Gurpreet Singh GP, Balwinder Laddi, Santokh Bhalaipur, Joginder Pal, Jagdev Kamalu and Pirmal Singh. They also supported Amarinder Singh’s decision not to meet Sidhu until he publicly tenders apology for his “derogatory” tweets against him.
