NEW DELHI, Sept 18: In keeping with the party’s age-old tradition, the Punjab Congress Legislature party at its meeting on Saturday adopted a one-line resolution authorizing the party national president Sonia Gandhi to choose the successor of Captain Amarinder Singh who resigned as the chief minister minutes before the scheduled start of the meeting.
Seventy eight of Congress’ 80 MLAs in Punjab attended the CLP meet. Four rebels of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), who had recently joined the Congress, were also present in the Congress Bhavan in Chandigarh but did not attend the CLP meeting. Captain Amarinder Singh, who had said earlier that he was feeling “humiliated” for the way the party high command had gunned for him and had threatened to quit the Congress, also stayed away from the CLP meeting.
The CLP meeting was called by the party high command to resolve the imbroglio in the Punjab Congress following differences between the chief minister and the newly-appointed state Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu.
Harish Rawat, the in-charge of Congress affairs in Punjab, said all the MLAs unanimously passed the one-line resolution requesting Gandhi to decide name for next chief minister. The resolution was moved by Brahm Mohindra and seconded by the party’s Dalit MLA from Amritsar, Raj Kumar Verka.
Rawat said the resolution has been sent through email to Sonia Gandhi. He, along with fellow party leader Ajay Maken, reached Chandigarh from Delhi on Saturday morning for the CLP meeting convened at the insistence of a group of party leaders close to Sidhu.
Meanwhile, Ajay Maken said he hoped that 79-year old Amarinder Singh would continue to guide the Punjab Congress being the senior-most leader of the party. As observer, he moved a resolution appreciating the leadership of Singh in strengthening the Congress in the state. Party MLA Tript Bajwa seconded it.
Within minutes of Singh’s resignation, his chief principal secretary Suresh Kumar and political secretary Captain Sandeep Sandhu also resigned from their respective posts. While Kumar, a retired IAS of 1983-batch, was considered final word of Amarinder on official matters, Sandhu used to look political affairs and was the bridge between the government and the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee.
Amarinder Singh is credited with putting the Congress party back in the saddle in Punjab after an intensely fought poll battle in 2017 that decimated the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and stymied AAP’s hopes.
(Manas Dasgupta)
