Punjab CM Amarinder Floats Feeler Against Sidhu, Hosts Meeting With Demand for Hindu Face

As Punjab elections draw close, several Hindu leaders in a meeting with Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Thursday demanded that the post of Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president go to a Hindu.

According to a report by The Indian Express, the meeting and the demand are being seen as yet another signal by the chief minister to the high command that he was not in favour of Sidhu being appointed as state Congress president.

The report said that the chief minister has already conveyed his view to the central leadership. The two leaders that Amarinder prefers for the post are said to be Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari and state Education and PWD Minister Vijay Inder Singla.

Punjab MLA Navjot Singh Sidhu on Wednesday met Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in Delhi, a day after Rahul Gandhi dismissed the “fuss” around a “no meeting” with the Punjab leader.

“There is no meeting. I don’t know what fuss you are making…,” Rahul Gandhi told reporters while leaving his Tughlaq Lane residence on Tuesday. He was asked if he was meeting Sidhu, as claimed by the former Punjab minister’s office.

Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi are trying to bring all Congress leaders, including Sidhu, on a common platform and present a united Congress ahead of elections.

Rahul Gandhi has been meeting leaders from Punjab over the past few days amid the ongoing infighting in Punjab Congress and ahead of an impending revamp of the party and the state cabinet.

The Congress leadership is all set for a revamp of the state unit in Punjab ahead of next year’s assembly elections.

Rahul Gandhi has met a number of ministers, MLAs and MPs including Brahm Mohindra, Vijay Inder Singla, Balbir Singh Sidhu and Rajya Sabha member Shamsher Singh Dullo and MLA Lakhvir Singh Lakha.

He has already met state Congress chief Sunil Jakhar and Rajya Sabha member and former Punjab Congress chief Partap Singh Bajwa.

Sidhu, who had resigned from the Punjab Cabinet after he was divested of the local bodies portfolio in 2019, has been at loggerheads with Chief Minister Amarinder Singh. He has attacked the chief minister over the alleged delay in justice in the 2015 incidents of sacrilege and subsequent police firing.

Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Coronavirus News here.