In a major jolt to the ruling Congress ahead the Lok Sabha elections, its senor leader and former MLA Joginder Singh Panjgrain on Tuesday gave up “hand” to hold the “scale”.
Panjgrain, currently Faridkot District Congress Committee president, joined Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in presence of its president Sukhbir Badal who welcomed the move saying that the party would be further strengthened in Faridkot with him coming into the fold.
Congress’ senior dalit in Malwa region, Panjgrain has been elected MLA from Panjgrain (reserve) seat in 2007 and Jaitu (reserve) seat in 2012, on the Congress ticket. Panjgrain had unsuccessfully contested 2014 Lok Sabha polls from Faridkot on a Congress ticket. He even lost 2017 assembly polls from Bhadaur seat.
After joining, Panjgrain accused the Congress of sidelining him after the 2017 Punjab polls, and alleged the ruling party of becoming a “party of sycophant”. “Some leaders have hijacked the party and they are not tolerating the poor people in the party,” he said.
Panjgrain said that he had decided to leave the Congress as it had drifted from its ideals and was no longer serving the poor and under privileged sections of society.
“I had met Pradesh Congress president Sunil Jakhar and even apprised him how the Dalit community was facing discrimination in the Congress dispensation but no corrective action was taken on my representation,” he alleged.
Panjgrain said that he was arbitrarily shifted to Bhadaur constituency in 2017 assembly elections.
SAD president Sukhbir Badal said that Panjgrain was a people’s leader who had entered politics in 1992 as a municipal councillor and had a record of heading the State labour union for 30 years.
He said that leaders like Pangrain were leaving the Congress to join SAD because they realized they would not be able to go back to the people and ask for their votes again because the Congress party had reneged on each and every promise made to the people be it to farmers, youth, Dalits, traders or even government employees.