Amarinder quits as Punjab chief minister
CHANDIGARH: Senior Congress leader Amarinder Singh on Saturday resigned as chief minister of Punjab, capping months of a power tussle that had polarised the ruling party in the state headed for elections in just about four months.
“I feel humiliated...,” Singh told reporters outside the Punjab Raj Bhawan after submitting his resignation to Governor Banwarilal Purohit along with his council of ministers.
Raveen Thukral, media advisor to the CM, said Capt Amarinder Singh has resigned with his council of ministers. “CM @capt_amarinder has met Punjab Governor and submitted his and his council of ministers’ resignation. He will address the media at the Raj Bhavan gate in a few minutes from now,” Thukral said in a tweet.
Singh’s resignation came hours before a crucial meeting of the Congress Legislature Party on Saturday evening.
“The thing is that this is the third time the party called the MLAs. You have an element of doubt on me... I have resigned,” he said.
The Congress can make pick anyone the leadership trusts the chief minister in the state, he said.
On his future course of action, Amarinder said, “As far as my future politics is concerned, there is always an option and I will use that option when time comes. I am in the Congress party. I will talk to my supporters and decide future course of politics.”
Singh said he decided this morning to resign from his post and that he had spoken to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and informed her about his decision.
Singh was accompanied by his wife and MP Preneet Kaur and son Raninder Singh when he submitted his resignation to Governor Banwarilal Purohit.
“I am proud to accompany my father to Raj Bhawan when he submits his resignation as CM of Punjab and leads us as head of our family into a new beginning,” Raninder Singh said in a tweet earlier.
The move came as factionalism resurfaced in the state unit with sections opposed to him requesting a meeting of Congress Legislature Party. Punjab is scheduled to go to the polls early next year.
Trouble mounted when over 50 MLAs wrote to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi asking that Singh be replaced as chief minister.
When the tussle in Punjab escalated in August, the party’s central leadership sought to bury the hatchet by appointing Navjot Singh Sidhu as the Congress chief apparently against the wishes of the chief minister.
Amarinder Singh, who was Captain during the 1965 IndoPakistan War, took the oath as the 26th Chief Minister of Punjab in 2017 after Congress won the Assembly Elections with the majority.
He served as president of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee from 2010 to 2013.
Singh had served as a member of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha for five terms representing Patiala (Urban) thrice and Samana and Talwandi Sabo once each.
In 2015, he was again elected as President of the Punjab Congress. Singh resigned from Lok Sabha on November 23, 2016, and fully dedicated himself to Punjab polls and the party came in power in the state with a majority.
It was under his leadership that the Congress won the
intensely fought poll battles in 2017, that decimated the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and crushed the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) dream of expanding its footprint beyond Delhi.
The ‘maharaja’s’ win in Punjab after 10 years had also rekindled the hopes for the revival of the grand old party.
Belonging to a very rare breed of politicians who have seen action in the Indo-Pak war, Singh tasted success in the 2017 polls after Akali Dal supremo Parkash Singh Badal foiled his previous attempts to become chief minister in 2007 and 2012.
Navjot Singh Sidhu joined the Congress a few months ahead of the polls after quitting the BJP. Speculation was rife that he would be given the post of deputy chief minister, but he was made a Cabinet Minister. Relations between him and the chief minister were never warm.
Just two years after the Congress came to power, Sidhu was stripped off key portfolios in the cabinet reshuffle in June 2019 and he then resigned from the state cabinet.
Singh had divested Sidhu of the local government and tourism and cultural affairs departments and allotted him the power and new and renewable energy portfolio though the latter never assumed charge of his new department.
Shortly afterwards, Sidhu had approached the then Congress president Rahul Gandhi and “apprised him of the situation”.
The tension between Singh and Sidhu soon became public, with Singh blaming him for the “inept handling” of the local government department, claiming that it resulted in “poor performance” of the Congress in urban areas in the (2019) Lok Sabha polls. The former cricketer, on the other hand said “(Congress chief) Rahul Gandhi is my captain...Rahul Gandhi is the captain of the captain (Singh) also.”