Congress to contest Punjab polls under Amarinder Singh’s leadership, says Harish Rawat
On Tuesday, 23 party MLAs, including four ministers, had held a meeting in which they demanded Singh’s removal from the chief minister’s post.
The Congress will contest the 2022 Punjab Assembly elections under the leadership of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, the party’s in charge of the state Harish Rawat said on Wednesday, according to ANI.
Rawat’s statement came a day after 23 party MLAs, including four ministers, held a meeting in which they demanded Singh’s removal from the chief minister’s post. One of the ministers, Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, said that the group will write to the party’s central leadership and meet interim party president Sonia Gandhi regarding the matter, NDTV reported.
Rawat said that four ministers and three MLAs had met him, but he dismissed speculation about infighting within the state unit of the party, ANI reported.
They [the MLAs and ministers] were concerned about our chances of victory in the state elections next year but clarified that they are not against anyone,” Rawat told reporters. “They want to go to the polls with a clear roadmap so that we win.”
He, however, added that the party was aware that “possible issues” might crop after they made changes to the Punjab Congress Committee.
“We will find a solution,” he told ANI. “Everyone trusts Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. But suddenly what has happened, why a large number of MLAs are disappointed. We will look into the matter and try and resolve it.”
On July 18, the Congress appointed Navjot Singh Sidhu the chief of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee.
Rawat told News18 on Wednesday that Singh had welcomed the decision of the party high command to appoint Sidhu as the chief of its unit in Punjab. Rawat added that the decision was not taken without the chief minister’s approval.
The Punjab unit of the Congress had been thrown into a crisis following a rift between Singh and Sidhu, who had been demanding a more prominent role in the Congress. Singh and Sidhu had been publicly criticising each other for months before the latter was appointed the Congress’ chief in Punjab.
In June, Sidhu had met Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in Delhi amid his feud with the Punjab chief minister. The Congress had formed a three-member committee to resolve the crisis in Punjab.
The committee, in its report, had recommended that Singh should lead the Congress in the election year, and that Sidhu should be “suitably accommodated”, according to The Tribune.
Senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge recently claimed in an interview to The Indian Express that the crisis in the Punjab Congress had been resolved, and there were no tensions between Singh and Sidhu.