Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Punjab is expected to douse the factional fire within the State Congress.
Gandhi is scheduled to meet the office-bearers of the party’s district and block level units, besides the elected representatives including MPs, MlAs, among other senior leaders to take a feedback of the state of affairs in the party.
The young Gandhi scion has all along been giving significance to the views and opinions of the party
cadre from the grass root level, saying that they were the ones who are connected with the people and close to the reality.
The Punjab Congress party unit, ever since the former Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh was replaced with his bête noire and former MP Partap Singh Bajwa as State party chief, has
been divided into two power centres headed by the two senior leaders.
Even as Capt Amarinder has exhibited his stronghold over majority of the party’s sitting and former MlAs who rallied behind him only recently on the day of his wife Preneet Kaur’s swearing in ceremony as Patiala MlA, Bajwa has been making attempts to claim his control over the state, district and block-level party units.
Moreover, Bajwa also enjoys the support of party’s general secretary and secretary in-charge of the state affairs Shakeel Ahmed and Harish Chaudhary, who have all along been maintaining that there would be no change in the state’s change of guard.
In a tug-of-war between Capt Amarinder and Bajwa, to show their supremacy over the other besides their popularity among the party leaders, the graph of the state Congress has been witnessing a plunge.
What is more, the differences between the two reached a flashpoint only recently when the Capt Amarinder directly maintained that Bajwa was neither his friend or supporter and thus not invited for attending Preneet’s oath-taking ceremony and also for the lunch hosted in her honour.
Majority of sitting and former legislators, besides several senior leaders, rallied behind Capt Amarinder, while just about 10 MlAs attended the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) meeting convened by Bajwa the same day — sending across a clear message as in who calls the shot within the party.
The campaign, that was initiated soon after party faced worst-ever poll debacle in 2014, to oust Bajwa for his failure to lead the party to victory despite strong anti-incumbency wave has gained momentum with the party losing Talwandi Sabo assembly seat under his supervision in bypolls.
Bajwa completely focused his concentration on Talwandi Sabo assembly constituency only, while not even sparing a single day for campaigning in Patiala from where Capt Amarinder’s wife Preneet is contesting polls despite being party chief.
In contrast, the Congress succeeded in retaining Patiala urban assembly segment, where Capt Amarinder supervised the electioneering.
Patiala win led to Capt Amarinder’s emergence as a strong leader after he strengthened his position in the party by winning parliamentary polls against BJP stalwart Arun Jaitley and making his wife Preneet Kaur won Patiala by poll.
Contrarily, Bajwa’s failure to retain his Gurdaspur lok Sabha seat and party’s loss at Talwandi Sabo has built anti-wave against him.
To top it all, Capt Amarinder had also communicated his views to the Congress national president Sonia Gandhi and also Rahul Gandhi against Bajwa to lead the party’s Punjab unit and demanded his ouster.
Rahul’s visit is being seen as an attempt to check the growing infighting between the state party leadership that may affect the party’s prospects in the near future.
Sources told The Pioneer that both the camps — led by Capt Amarinder and Bajwa — are preparing for the final face-off in the presence of Rahul Gandhi.
Even as the Capt Amarinder camp has been stressing that Bajwa has no control over party and party MPs and MlAs were not taken into confidence before making organizational appointments in their respective constituencies, the Bajwa camp has been alleging the other faction of acting as a hurdle in PPCC’s functioning and scuttling their almost every campaign against the State Government.