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Sidhu, four other Congress state chiefs told to quit
Along with Navjot Singh Sidhu, the high-profile face of the Congress and its president in Punjab, Ganesh Godiyal in Uttarakhand, Ajay Kumar Lallu in Uttar Pradesh, Girish Chodankar in Goa, and N Loken Singh in Manipur have also been asked to put in their papers.
Less than a year after his appointment as the Punjab Congress chief in July 2021, Navjot Singh Sidhu was asked to resign on Tuesday as a part of party president Sonia Gandhi’s plan to reorganise Congress units of all five states where the party faced humiliating defeats last week.
Along with Sidhu, the high-profile face of the Congress in Punjab, Ganesh Godiyal in Uttarakhand, Ajay Kumar Lallu in Uttar Pradesh, Girish Chodankar in Goa, and N Loken Singh in Manipur have also been asked to put in their papers. This is the first move made by the party to revamp its functioning after it failed to win a single state in the recently concluded assembly elections.
Soon after the development, Godiyal and Lallu announced their resignations on Tuesday evening.
The decision to remove all five state unit presidents came less than 48 hours of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting where Gandhi was urged to make “necessary and comprehensive” changes in the organisation. Party insiders maintain that many more heads might roll as the high command is keen to get the party battle-ready for the next round of elections in the face of intense criticism from both outside and within its ranks.
“Congress president Sonia Gandhi has asked the PCC presidents of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa & Manipur to put in their resignations in order to facilitate reorganisation of PCC’s…” tweeted party’s chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala.
Among the five who were asked to quit, it is the removal of Sidhu that was the big talking point given that Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra visibly supported him in his feud with former chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh that led to his own rise and the latter leaving the party.
The decision to change the state unit chiefs, according to two party insiders, signals that Sonia Gandhi, who is set to hand over the charges to a new president in August, wants to take some quick decisions, especially with the G-23 leaders critical of the Congress’s decision-making process.
“Knowing (Sonia) Gandhi, she will consult several leaders and look at different options before bringing reorganizing the PCCs of these five states. She has already consulted a host of leaders barring the G-23 about the results and what went wrong for the party,” said one of the two, requesting anonymity.
The G-23 group comprises senior leaders who have been openly demanding internal reforms in the party and have written to Gandhi in the past. Incidentally, the group is likely to meet on Wednesday.
Last year, Sidhu was handpicked by Rahul Gandhi after Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s strong push for his candidature as a popular icon for Punjab’s youth. Even in the CWC meeting, several members reportedly slammed Sidhu, prompting Rahul Gandhi to respond that the party’s internal surveys showed he had 45% popularity, said people aware of developments.
In May last year, Sidhu led a rebellion against his bête noire, Captain Amarinder Singh, who was eventually removed and Sidhu named as the party’s state unit chief. But his tantrums, acerbic comments, and resignation to protest against his own government in November 2021 didn’t go down well with Congress supporters. “It is unlikely that Sidhu or the other four state presidents will get a major responsibility in the immediate future,” said a leader considered close the Gandhi family.
Sidhu, who also took potshots at former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi, was trounced in his own assembly constituency, where he lost to Aam Aadmi Party’s Jeevan Jyot Kaur.
After the defeat to the AAP in the assembly polls, Sidhu said, “People who dug holes for me, are now buried 10 feet under” and suggested that “chintan” (introspection) instead of “chinta” (worry) should be done. He also tried blame Channi, and said, “I’m not going into a deep analysis of whether people accepted Channi’s face as chief minister candidate or not.”
A Congress strategist added that there would be more changes in the organisation, especially in the poll-bound states of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. The Congress has failed to win any state on its own in 12 elections over the last three years. It is a junior partner of Tamil Nadu’s ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and in the Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra.
The Congress rules just two states – Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh – on its own and faces an ascendant Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in all state elections scheduled later this year and next year.
