Punjab turmoil now a political storm for Cong
NEW DELHI/CHANDIGARH: A party in disarray in a poll-bound state. A defiant state unit chief rebuffing the party’s overtures. A snubbed former chief minister meeting a top political rival. And, senior leaders publicly voicing differences with the leadership, prompting protests by others in the same party.
The Congress’s troubles in Punjab spilled over to Delhi on Wednesday as former chief minister Amarinder Singh met Union home minister Amit Shah and leaders upped their pitch for organisational changes, a day after state unit chief Navjot Singh Sidhu’s abrupt resignation plunged the party into crisis.
Singh, who had denied talk of him visiting Shah a day ago, drove to the home minister’s residence around 6pm for a meeting that lasted less than an hour.
The event stoked speculation that Singh, who resigned as CM last week after a months-long tussle with Sidhu and complained he was humiliated by the party leadership, could join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or seek its support.
But Singh said the meeting focused on the ongoing farm agitation against three central laws. “Met Union home minister Amit Shah ji in Delhi. Discussed the prolonged farmers agitation and urged him to resolve the crisis urgently,” he tweeted.
A senior BJP functionary said a section of the party felt Singh could resolve the standoff
between the government and protesting farmers, but added that nothing was finalised. The Congress accused Shah and the BJP of trying to take revenge. “Amit Shah’s residence is the hub of anti-Dalit politics,”said party spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala, referring to the Punjab’s new chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi, a Dalit.
“Not ji huzoor 23”
The Congress’s woes in Punjab, where the party was well-placed to fight the February-March assembly polls before factionalism erupted in May, prompted a
group of senior leaders in Delhi to resurrect their 2020 demands for organisational changes and internal elections.
Ghulam Nabi Azad, one of the leaders of the so-called G23, wrote to party chief Sonia Gandhi seeking a Congress Working Committee meeting to discuss the Punjab and Goa situations as well as the “mass exodus” in the organisation. Senior Congress leader and former Goa CM Luizhinio Falerio joined the Trinamool Congress on Wednesday.
Another G-23 leader, Kapil Sibal, demanded “open dialogue” and introspection, questioning the lack of clarity in the decision-making process.
He emphasised that the grouping was not made up of yes men: “We are G23 but not ‘ji huzoor (yes, lordship) 23’,” he told reporters in the Capital.
Sibal said he was speaking on behalf of the 23 leaders who wrote to Sonia Gandhi last year and were waiting for the leadership to act on their demands.
“We don’t have a president. So, who’s taking the decisions? We all know and yet we don’t know. We want a CWC meeting for a dialogue to take place,” he said.
The former Union minister clarified that the G-23 leaders did not plan to exit the party. “People close to them have left them. But those who are not considered close, are with them,” he said, referring to the exits of senior leaders in recent months.
Party general secretary Ajay Maken criticised the comments and party workers protested outside his house in the evening with “get well soon” placards.
“My appeal to Mr Sibal and others like him is that they should not denigrate the organisation which has given them political identity by rushing to the media every then and now,” Maken told PTI.