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Sidhu takes back resignation as Punjab Cong chief, sets terms to resume duties
Sidhu had resigned from the post on September 28, triggering a fresh crisis in the Congress’s Punjab unit ahead of state assembly elections. The next day, however, Sidhu said his concerns have been resolved and the party asserted that he will continue as the head of the state unit.
Chandigarh: Navjot Singh Sidhu said on Friday that he has withdrawn his resignation as Punjab Congress chief, but will return to his office “when a new Advocate General is appointed”.
Sidhu had resigned from the post on September 28, triggering a fresh crisis in the Congress’s Punjab unit ahead of state assembly elections. The next day, however, Sidhu said his concerns have been resolved and the party asserted that he will continue as the head of the state unit.
“At the start, I want to say that Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi’s soldier has taken back his resignation... I have taken back my resignation. And I categorically state that the day a new Advocate General is appointed, I will assume charge,” Sidhu told a press conference on Friday.
Sidhu has been opposing the appointment of state Advocate General A P S Deol and Director General of Police Iqbal Preet Singh Sahota, considered as new chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi’s choices. He had earlier indicated that these two appointments were part of the reason he quit.
Sahota had headed the SIT formed by the previous SAD-BJP government to probe incidents of desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib in 2015. And as a lawyer, Deol had represented former DGP Sumedh Singh Saini, who headed the state police six years ago during the incidents of sacrilege and police firing on protesters.
“It was never personal or a matter of ego. It is the question of conscience of Punjab. Without moral, you cannot speak the truth,” Sidhu said, arguing that the offices of the AG and the DGP are crucial to take the Bargari sacrilege and drug trafficking cases to their logical conclusions.
Firing a salvo against his own government, Sidhu questioned the delay in action against sacrilege cases.
“What is this happening…when we go to villages, how are we going to answer people? What are we going to say? The party is demanding answers. After three special investigation teams (SITs), seven first information reports (FIRs), two commissions and six years of the sacrilege cases are these the only officers you could find,” he asked.
“Don’t you want the report to be made public in the state assembly? Which court order is restraining you? Who is stopping?... I say if you don’t have the guts to make the STF report public, give it to the party and I will make it public. I have the guts,” he said.
