Malwinder Mali quits as Sidhu’s adviser
I’ve conveyed to the high command that if you don’t allow me to take decisions, my actions can be destructive as well. NAVJOT SINGH SIDHU, Punjab Congress chief →P3
CHANDIGARH: Under fire for his controversial remarks on Kashmir, Malwinder Singh Mali on Friday quit as adviser to Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu.
Mali, whom the PPCC president had appointed as his adviser on August 11 for “wise counsel”, has given up the role. “I humbly submit that I withdraw my consent given for tendering suggestions to Navjot Sidhu,” he said in a statement posted on his Facebook page.
Mali did not term it as his resignation and claimed, in another post in Punjabi, that the question of his resignation did not arise as he had never accepted the post.
He said that a hateful campaign against him by Capt Amarinder Singh, Vijay Inder Singla, Manish Tewari, Sukhbir Badal, Bikram Majithia and others. These politicians would be responsible if any harm was done to him, he said in the statement.
The voluble adviser quit the role a day after Punjab affairs in-charge Harish Rawat gave an ultimatum to Sidhu to remove his two advisers — Mali and Pyare Lal Garg — whose statements on Kashmir and Pakistan have embarrassed the party.
In a Facebook post last week, Mali had said Kashmir was a “country of Kashmiri people” and called both India and Pakistan its illegal occupiers. In a separate post, he put a sketch of late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi standing near a heap of human skulls with a gun in her hand. Garg also criticised Capt Amarinder for attacking Pakistan over Kashmir.
Amarinder, who was the target of Mali’s regular digs, had asked Sidhu to “rein in” his two advisers, questioning their “atrocious and ill-conceived” comments that were potentially dangerous to the peace and stability of the country. However, Sidhu kept quiet, and the central leader had to issue the ultimatum amid mounting criticism from top leaders of the BJP and other parties on these sensitive issues.
An ex-government teacher, Mali was a student leader who turned to journalism before taking up the government job. Garg, a former registrar of Baba Farid University of Health Sciences.
NEW DELHI: Congress general secretary Harish Rawat met Sonia Gandhi on Friday and sought to be relieved as the in-charge of the party’s affairs in Punjab citing next year’s assembly polls in Uttarakhand.
According to sources, Rawat, a former chief minister and the Congress’ campaign committee chairman in Uttarakhand, informed the party chief that he wants to concentrate on the upcoming polls in the hill state.
Assembly elections will be held in Punjab and Uttarakhand simultaneously early next year.
When reporters asked Rawat if he has sought to be relieved as the in-charge of Congress’ Punjab affairs so that he can concentrate on the upcoming polls in his state the former Uttarakhand chief minister replied in the affirmative.
He, however, added, “If my party asks me to continue (as Punjab affairs in-charge), I will do so.”
While the Congress is seeking to retain power in Punjab, it aims to return to power by defeating the ruling BJP in the hill state.