The murmurs within the Congress party’s Punjab unit on replacing the Chief Minister on Tuesday became loud and clear with no less than 31 Congress MLAs raising a banner of revolt against Capt Amarinder Singh’s leadership.
Expressing loss of faith in Capt Amarinder, the “rebel” legislators have announced to meet party supremo Sonia Gandhi to seek the Chief Minister’s replacement, with the crucial 2022 Assembly polls just about six months away.
Soon, a five-member panel, comprising Ministers and MLAs, would be meeting Sonia and also State party affairs’ in-charge Harish Rawat to convey their “sentiments”.
The decision to seek Capt Amarinder’s replacement after meeting Sonia, came after a meeting attended by 46 Congress leaders, including four Cabinet Ministers, more than two dozen legislators, and former MLAs, was held at the residence of Rural Development and Panchayat Minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa in Sector 39.
Notably, all the leaders, who participated in the meeting, were those who strongly backed Navjot Singh Sidhu in the recent game of one-upmanship against Capt Amarinder.
Besides Tript Bajwa, Cooperation Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Water Resources Minister Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria, and Tourism Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, attended the closed-door meeting along with Punjab Congress’ newly-appointed general secretary and MLA Pargat Singh, besides other sitting and former MLAs.
Later, Tript Bajwa called up Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu seeking time for an “emergency meeting”. Sidhu, after meeting the rebel Ministers and MLAs, maintained that he would “apprise the high command of the situation”.
Notably, the Congress currently has total 77 legislators, besides three rebel MLAs from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) also joining the ruling party recently, thus having the support of total 80 legislators in a House of 117. Of these, almost half of the legislators openly expressed their resentment against the Chief Minister by participating in the meeting.
The development assumes significance as it comes ahead of Punjab party affairs in-charge Harish Rawat’s Chandigarh visit. Even as the cold war between the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder and Punjab Congress chief Sidhu continued unabated even after the change of guard, the latest rebellion by Cabinet Minister and MLAs has further deepened the crisis in the Punjab Congress unit.
The Ministers, after the meeting openly called for changing the Chief Minister making it clear that they do not have faith in him. Tript Bajwa, in fact, minced no words to accuse the Chief Minister of harming the Congress party and deliberately passing on the power-baton to the Akalis.
“He is hand in glove with them...He is deliberately harming the Congress party, and that is why not taking any action against them,” said a visibly charged Tript Bajwa after the meeting.
The five-member panel - comprising Tript Bajwa, Randhawa, Sarkaria, Channi, and Pargat Singh - is coordinating and seeking time to meet the Congress president. The panel may also meet Rawat on Wednesday.
Tript Bajwa said that they do not have an appointment with Gandhi in Delhi, but they will raise the issue with the General Secretary in-charge and press upon him the need to organise a meeting.
He said that they had not invited Sidhu, but had “informed him” a day before, but he was unaware about the agenda.
Maintaining that all the main issues including sacrilege, drugs, power purchase agreements (PPAs) still stay as these were, Pargat Singh said that the Chief Minister should convene the Congress Legislative Party (CLP) meeting to clarify everything.
“The basic issues are as it is...No doubt work has been done, but the main issues like sacrilege, PPAs, drugs, they are the same...We are talking about that,” he said, making it clear that there was “no factionalism”.
Channi, addressing the media after the meeting, said that the leaders have reached a consensus that five members of the party will leave for Delhi immediately to meet Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.
“We will leave for Delhi and come back only after meeting Sonia Gandhi. The MLAs have lost confidence in the Chief Minister and the way he is working. We are going to seek his replacement,” said Channi, who was accompanied by other ‘rebel’ Ministers and Pargat Singh.
Pargat Singh stated that a consensus was reached in the meeting that the MLAs were not satisfied with the Chief Minister’s functioning, and hence they would clearly communicate the sentiment to Sonia Gandhi.
“We have no option but to seek his replacement. No work has been done and no promises fulfilled. Therefore, we will tell the high command that the Chief Minister has lost trust of the people,” said Bajwa who also claimed that 46 MLAs had attended the meeting at his residence.
“Many others are also in the rebel camp but did not want to attend such a meeting openly,” he said.
Randhawa, who was once the Capt Amarinder loyalist, stated that it was sure that they would not be able to win the elections under the present Chief Minister.
Notably, these MLAs had earlier planned to convene a CLP meeting, while also inviting Sidhu for the same. It was planned that during the meeting, a resolution, stating that the majority of MLAs have lost confidence in Capt Amarinder’s leadership, would be passed in the meeting.
MINISTERS TURN REBELS ONLY TO BEFOOL PUNJABIS: SAD
Asking the Congress national president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi to tender an apology to Punjabis for forcing a non-performing government on the state thereby wasting five years of Punjab; SAD on Tuesday hit out at the Cabinet Ministers who turned rebels.
“After enjoying fruits of government for four and a half years, they are now pretending to be innocent and sinless...Having read the writing on the wall about imminent defeat of Congress for failing to keep its promises made to people on eve of 2017 elections, they are now trying to put all the blame on the Chief Minister,” said SAD MLA and spokesperson NK Sharma.
Maintaining that the Congress Government has pushed Punjab more than two decades back, he said that whatever was achieved during 10-year rule of SAD-led Governments under Parkash Singh Badal has been completely washed away.
“Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are answerable to Punjabis for forcing non performing government on the State - a fact their own Ministers and MLAs are now saying publicly. Earlier too, Punjab had witnessed war of one-upmanship between Capt Amarinder and Navjot Singh Sidhu and now their teams have again turned Punjab into a battleground for Congress infighting,” he added.