With the clamour on Punjab Congress chief Partap Singh Bajwa’s resignation becoming shriller with each passing day, the two senior party leaders, considered to be his close aides, put in their papers over party’s “poor” show in 2014 lok Sabha polls.
Congress spokesperson and former MlA Sukhpal Khaira, besides sitting MlA from Dera Baba Nanak and Gurdaspur district Congress committee (DCC) chief Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa resigned on Sunday.
Khaira, former Bholath MlA, resigned from the post owning “moral responsibility” for the party’s “poor performance” in the recently-held lok Sabha polls in the State. Out of 13 lok Sabha seats, Congress could bag only three seats as against eight seats won by it in 2009.
“I wish to resign as the spokesperson of Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee, owning moral responsibility for the poor performance of the party in Punjab,” Khaira said, in a letter to party vice-president Rahul Gandhi, copy of which was also sent to party’s national general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi, party’s general secretary in-charge of Punjab Shakeel Ahmad, and party’s secretary in-charge of State Harish Chaudhary.
Khaira, who was appointed as spokesperson of Punjab Congress in April last year, said: “I have discharged my duties honestly, fearlessly and relentlessly and left no stone unturned to oppose...the anti-people and unconstitutional policies of the SAD-BJP combine Government.” He said he tried his best to strengthen the party in the State but somehow the Congress was unable to deliver or convert the strong anti-incumbency factor against the SAD-BJP Government into votes.
“I take full moral responsibility for the poor showing on the hustings and offer my resignation from the post,” he said. On the other hand, Randhawa too resigned from the party post of Gurdaspur DCC president owing responsibility of Bajwa’s defeat. The State party president Bajwa was trounced by BJP’s actor-turned-politician Vinod Khanna from Gurdaspur lok Sabha seat.
It may be clarified that Randhawa has not resigned as party MlA from Dera Baba Nanak Assembly segment, which falls under Gurdaspur Parliamentary constituency, and from where Khanna took a maximum lead of 25,384 votes.
Randhawa, in a communiqué to party president Sonia Gandhi, stated that as a party worker and president DCC, he had failed to deliver and address the present mood of the people who were “against” the SAD-BJP combine Government. The copy of the resignation has also been sent to Bajwa.
He said: “There are a number of issues where the SAD-BJP Government has not only failed to deliver but also whipping the people on every front...We, in the opposition, have even failed to raise anti-incumbency issue and our target during and before the polls were very soft on the issues like drug mafia, land mafia, rising prices of sand and gravel and its control by mafia, police excesses on common man and many more such issues including corruption.”
Randhawa admitted that the state party’s leadership was “driven by dissidence and the leadership has also failed to curtail it in time.”