The high velocity winds of dissidence blowing across Punjab Congress on Monday reached the national Capital as 25 of its partymen met the high command-constituted three-member panel to prevent the current situation from turning into a political storm just before the 2022 elections.
The leaders, including State party chief Sunil Jakhar, eight Ministers, and over a dozen legislators, openly aired their grievances, bringing to the high command’s notice factors that could possibly damage the election prospects, including the handling of the sensitive issue of sacrilege and related firing incidents.
Capt Sandeep Sandhu, adviser to the Chief Minister and who is accused of threatening MLA Pargat Singh over phone, too reached Delhi to meet the panel.
On the other hand, an anxious Congress party issued a gag order asking its leaders not to talk about the “crisis within” in the public.
Now, all eyes are on Tuesday’s meetings as the panel, headed by senior Congress leader and the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge with State party affairs in-charge Harish Rawat and former MP JP Agarwal as its members, has invited party’s firebrand and motor-mouth leader Navjot Singh Sidhu and his close aide and party MLA Pargat Singh for the meeting.
The three-member panel, constituted by the party’s interim president Sonia Gandhi, to resolve the prevailing crisis within the Punjab Congress unit, started the first round of meetings from 11 am and met as many as 25 leaders one by one, and paid them a “patient hearing”.
Even as the State Congress unit has virtually divided into two power centres — one headed by Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and another criticising Government’s performance, most of the leaders maintained a strategic silence over the issues they had raised boisterously in the recent past.
After the meeting, most of the leaders maintained that they had no issues with the Chief Minister or any other leader, and if there was any conflict within the party, it would soon be resolved. They pointed out that their main concern is that the party fulfills its pre-poll promise punishing the guilty of drugs and sacrilege.
Jakhar, who is well known for his proximity both to the Chief Minister and the former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, was first to meet the panel.
Sources told The Pioneer that Jakhar gave the chronology of events, how things unfolded and reached such a point. It has also been learnt that he highlighted how some leaders, who were in the habit of “finding an opportunity in crisis”, tried to exploit the situation.
He also pointed out to the panel that the way party’s Rajya Sabha MP Partap Singh Bajwa himself gave a 45-day ultimatum to his own party’s government was “not the right thing to do”.
Sources have also informed that some of MLAs vociferously raised the issue of sacrilege, pointing out that if the same was not resolved and the guilty would not be punished within next two months, the Congress party had to suffer in the next electoral battle.
Congress MLA and party’s senior Dalit leader Raj Kumar Verka, among other issues, highlighted that during the past four years term, the Dalit community did not get what it should have, “but only 50 percent”.
Verka also added that the high command has invited not just the disgruntled MLAs but all the leaders and the views of all the leaders will be heard. “The meeting has been called to resolve the prevailing conflict. Whatever decision the high command will take, we all will follow it and no one will go beyond that decision,” he added.
Among other issues underscored during the meeting includes unbridled powers to the bureaucrats, MLAs not being heard in their own government, Chief Minister not giving enough time to meet the party leaders and he should give more time.
Cabinet Minister Sadhu Singh Dharmasot said that there was no resentment of any kind in the party. “The high command is like our parents, we will definitely come whenever they call,” he said.
Congress MLA Sangat Singh Gilzian said that if the party did not act in sacrilege and other issues, the party is set to lose. “The party should not lag behind in this matter. Our government, including me and also the Chief Minister, is responsible for not taking any action for four and a half years in sacrilege and related firing cases,” he said, adding that but we had promised and we will take the matter to the conclusion.
Notably, the panel has not been given any decision making authority. The committee would submit its report to the party’s national president after hearing the views from the Congress leaders over the three days, following which a final decision will be taken by the high command.
‘DON’T AIR GRIEVANCES IN PUBLIC’
After paying due attention to grievances and issues of all the leaders, the panel has virtually issued a gag order to the party leaders not to air their views out in the media. “We have been asked that whatever we wanted to talk about, we should do it at the party level. They said that we have heard you. If we want, they will listen to us again. But, going out in the media, will adversely impact the party’s image and it should be avoided,” a Congress MLA said, after the meeting.
SIDHU, PARGAT SINGH TO MEET TODAY
The committee will continue its consultations till Wednesday, concluding it with the meeting with the Chief Minister. Sidhu, Pargat Singh, and also Partap Singh Bajwa - who all have opened front against the Chief Minister - are scheduled to meet the panel on Tuesday. Sidhu wants his “respectable” rehabilitation either in the government or the party. He has been attacking the Chief Minister, saying that he is waiting as the high command has intervened. Sidhu dared the Chief Minister to prove his allegations of his joining another party. Sources maintained that the high command is mulling over appointing two deputies to the Chief Minister - in an apparent attempt to do a balancing act between the two factions. Sidhu and one more leader may be appointed as Deputy Chief Ministers.