JOIN USAmarinder Singh spells out action plan to fulfil poll promises as Navjot Singh Sidhu ups ante
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Tuesday outlined the action plan to fulfil key poll promises related to law and order during his meeting with the Mallikarjun Kharge-led panel to end factionalism in the state Congress, ahead of the assembly polls early next year.
Singh’s meeting with the three-member Kharge panel came at a time when his bete noire Navjot Singh Sidhu launched a broadside against the chief minister, an action that was strongly disapproved by the Congress leadership.
The chief minister is also learnt to have conveyed his unhappiness at Sidhu’s outburst against him saying such remarks could weaken the Congress ahead of the elections.
Even as the chief minister met the three-member panel, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi held meetings with a group of leaders, who are unhappy with Singh’s style of functioning.
“Everybody has said that they will fight the polls together and the party is united under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi,” Kharge told reporters after the meeting with the Punjab Chief Minister.
He said the discussions with the Punjab leadership have been about contesting the 2022 assembly elections as a united force and expressed the hope that the differences would be sorted out amicably.
“Everything will be alright… whatever big or small mistakes or complaints are there, they will be resolved,” said Kharge. Congress President Sonia Gandhi had set up a three-member panel led by Kharge with AICC General Secretary Harish Rawat and senior leader J P Agarwal as members to end factionalism in Punjab Congress.
Sidhu, who has been sidelined after he resigned from the Punjab government following differences with Singh, has stepped up the attack on the chief minister over the sacrilege issue. The matter relates to the investigation into incidents of desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib in 2015 under the Akali Dal government.
Sidhu has accused Singh of going soft on former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal. Action against those involved in the sacrilege cases and the drug mafia were the key election promises of Congress in the 2017 elections.
Singh’s detractors, including Sidhu, accuse him of not fulfilling the election promises.
Ahead of the next year’s elections, Sidhu is eyeing the post of the Punjab Congress chief and is unwilling to join the state government again. The chief minister is against Sidhu’s appointment as the state Congress chief.