Chandigarh: Senior leadership of the Punjab Congress put up a united front Thursday for the filing of nomination papers of Karamjit Chaudhary, the party’s candidate for the 10 May Jalandhar parliamentary bypoll.
Navjot Singh Sidhu met Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, Leader of the Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa and former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi in Jalandhar. This was their first in-person meeting since former Punjab Congress chief Sidhu’s release from jail earlier this month.
Top leaders of the Punjab Congress were absent from a welcome ceremony organised for Sidhu outside Patiala jail on 1 April, setting off rumours of an impending implosion in the party on account of its poor performance in the 2022 assembly elections.
The focus of all party leaders, thus, was to put their “unity” on display.
“One family in one frame,” Warring wrote on Twitter, with pictures of the Congress leaders together in Jalandhar for the filing of nomination papers.
Bajwa, meanwhile, posted pictures of Congress leaders visiting the memorial of Santokh Singh Chaudhary — the Congress MP from Jalandhar whose death from a heart attack during the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra last December necessitated the bypoll.
Chaudhary’s wife Karamjit was declared the party’s candidate almost immediately after the date for the bypoll was announced last month.
Sidhu also posted pictures of himself and the state Congress leadership with Karamjit captioned, “United We Fight , For What is Right , With All Our Might !!”
While the event Thursday was hailed as a show of solidarity by the Punjab Congress, the real picture may not be as rosy as it seems. Both Warring and Bajwa were conspicuously missing from the massive gathering organised outside Patiala jail to welcome Sidhu. Sidhu, too, did not make any attempt to meet either of the two following his release.
Instead, he made it a point to travel to Delhi and meet the Congress party’s national leadership including party president Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. This may have given the impression that Sidhu was senior to both Bajwa and Warring, and that he would deal only with the party’s national leadership, not its state leaders.
“We are all united,” Punjab Congress general secretary Sandeep Sandhu told ThePrint Thursday in response to questions about differences between the party’s state leadership.
“Entire party leadership was there for the filing of nomination of our candidate. Now, for the campaign also everybody will work together. There are no differences among party men,” he insisted.
No love lost between Sidhu, Warring & Channi
Back in Punjab, Sidhu has been holding a series of meetings with veteran Congress leaders on the pretext that they had long been ignored and that it was important for them to be brought back into active
The most recent of these was held Wednesday with leaders Sidhu referred to as “taksali Congressmen” or the ‘Congress old guard’. Held at the residence of former CM Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, the meeting was attended by former finance minister Lal Singh, former Punjab Congress chief Shamsher Singh Dullo and former MP Mohinder Singh Kaypee.
On Tuesday, Sidhu met Kaypee at the latter’s residence in Jalandhar. Later that same day, he also met former cabinet minister Avtar Henry.
“It is very important to ensure that the taksali Congressmen are activated. They are stalwarts and institutions in themselves and have played a very significant role in the growth of Congress in Punjab… many of them are unhappy and upset and as a result, have gone quietly back into their houses… it is important to draw them out and that is exactly what I am doing,” Sidhu told reporters at Bhattal’s residence in Chandigarh Wednesday.
In an apparent reference to Warring’s remarks that any Congressman who was upset with the party was free to leave, Sidhu added, “It should never be said that those who want to leave the party can leave.”
He went further to add that he was taking this initiative on his own and did not need to occupy any post or position to do good work for the party.
A source in the Punjab Congress admit that there is some friction between Warring and Sidhu and that the camaraderie the two seemed to exude in September 2021 when they came together to oust the then-chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh was missing.
“The prime reason is that Warring was chosen to replace Sidhu when he had, as head of the party, failed the party in the assembly elections last year. Sidhu is not only meeting old Congress stalwarts, he is also talking about energising workers and putting life back into the Congress. All these are statements that make him a contender for the post of the party chief and that, in turn, makes Warring insecure,” the source added
Although Warring had taken over as president of Punjab Congress on April 22 last year, he chose to issue a video message on Facebook marking his first year in the post a day after Sidhu’s release from jail.
The Congress, under Amarinder Singh, had ended ten years of Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party rule with its resounding victory in the 2017 assembly elections — winning 77 of 117 seats. But the party suffered a humiliating defeat in the 2022 assembly polls when it was reduced to a mere 18 seats and lost power to the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party.
Moreover, there is no love lost between Sidhu and Channi who was chosen over the cricketer-turned-politician to become the chief minister of Punjab in September 2021 following Amarinder Singh’s resignation.
Channi addressed two press conferences at the Congress office in Chandigarh, one Thursday and another Friday, during which he termed the Punjab Vigilance Bureau’s decision to summon him for questioning in connection with a disproportionate assets case as a “political vendetta”.
During both press conferences, Channi was accompanied by the party’s top leadership including Warring, Bajwa and general secretary in charge of the state, Harish Choudhary. However, Sidhu chose to remain absent.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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Source: The Print
