Punjab: More Trouble Awaits Congress as Party Rejected Change of Leadership Demand
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Aug 25: The ruling Congress in Punjab has further plunged in partisan politics after the summary rejection of the demand from the dissidents for a change of leadership in the party.
“The Congress will contest the 2022 state Assembly elections in Punjab under the leadership of the chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh,” the senior Congress leader and former Uttarakhand chief minister Harish Rawat, who is party in-charge of Punjab, said after his meeting in Dehradun on Wednesday with a group of rebel leaders. He has signalled that the demand to replace Singh would not be accepted.
He, however, refused to term the latest move by the disgruntled elements for a change of leadership as a “rebellion” against the party. “They have not rebelled, no one said they have no faith in the Congress ideology. They have only expressed their views on the leadership of Amarinder Singh,” Rawat told the media persons after his meeting with the dissidents.
After the Congress leadership backed the chief minister and tuned down the peal for a change, the rebel leaders said they would travel to Delhi from Dehradun to call on the party president Sonia Gandhi.
The demand for Singh’s removal from the post of the Punjab Chief Minister resurfaced after he targeted the advisors of state Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu over their comments on Pakistan and Kashmir.
On Tuesday, 31 party MLAs, including four ministers, and some former MLAs held a meeting at the residence of one of the ministers and decided that they would write to the Central leadership for a change of the chief minister. Sidhu himself was not present in the meeting. “Captain should be replaced else the Congress won’t survive… we will meet Sonia Gandhi over the issue,” said cabinet minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa after the meeting.
On Wednesday, the four cabinet ministers — Bajwa, Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and Charanjit Singh Channi — met Rawat in Dehradun to discuss the leadership change issue.
The Congress has backed Singh all through the rebellion in the party ranks that started months ago and resurfaced a week ago. The compromise formula recently ironed out by the party high command included elevation of Sidhu, the biggest critic of the Chief Minister, as the state Congress chief. But despite his promotion, the rebellion against Singh has not stopped. The fresh infighting indicated that the crisis in the state party is far from being over.
A section of the MLAs have been contending that Singh’s alleged failure to meet the promises made ahead of the last state elections had upset the voters and they would not forgive the party. But the Congress has decided to back Singh, one of the few mass leaders in the party.
Asked if she thinks Sidhu was responsible for the unrest in the party, state leader Preneet Kaur said, “Of course he started it, it is his advisors.” She claimed that the “The Chief Minister showed maturity and largeness of heart. Once the high command decided that Sidhu was coming, CM said ‘It is the Congress chief’s decision ánd I abide by it’,” she said.
The rebels, she said, should “fall in line. This is not the time to rake up all these things. You rake them up at the party platform and go ahead. We want a united Congress to fight the election,” she added.
