Rebuilding the party’s district units, the Congress has appointed its four sitting MLAs as the District Congress Committee’s (DCC) presidents in Punjab, while ignoring the party’s women leaders. Among the total 28 appointees, 11 former legislators have also been named as party’s district unit heads.
The All-India Congress Committee (AICC) had approved the appointments and released by AICC general secretary KC Venugopal on late Saturday. The Congress party has decided to hand over the baton to the generation next, as those appointed are the comparatively young members of the party, seemingly keeping in view Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra.
Interestingly, the party which strongly advocates 33 percent reservation for the women has not given command of any of the 28 districts to a woman.
After loosing 2022 state assembly polls, Congress party has lost ground in the state, and emerged as a weak party with many of its senior leaders, including former Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, former state party chief Sunil Jakhar and several former Ministers, have joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
To handle its disintegrating clan, the party has entrusted the MLAs and former MLAs with the responsibility of strengthening the organization by taking charge of the districts.
Even though the list of district presidents was to be released much earlier, it was delayed after the party’s general secretary in-charge Capt Sandeep Sandhu was booked in a corruption case, as he was preparing the list of district president and other organization officials.
Among the sitting legislators, Gurdaspur MLA Barindermeet Singh Pahra has been given the responsibility of Gurdaspur DCC, while Sujanpur MLA Naresh Puri has been made the DCC president in Pathankot. Phagwara MLA Balwinder Singh Dhaliwal and Shahkot MLA Hardev Singh Laddi have made district unit presidents of Kapurthala and Jalandhar Rural, respectively.
Among the former MLAs Harpartap Singh Ajnala (Amritsar Rural), Arun Dogra (Hoshiarpur), Sanjay Talwar (Ludhiana Urban), Lakhbir Singh Lakha (Khanna), Harminder Gill (Tarn Taran), Kaka Sukhjit Singh Lohgarh (Muktsar), Davinder Singh Ghubaya (Fazilka), Kulbir Singh Zira (Ferozepur), Rajinder Berry (Jalandhar Urban), Gurpreet Singh GP (Fatehgarh Sahib), and Dalvir Singh Goldy (Sangrur) have been given responsibilities