All Punjab Congress MPs, MLAs called to Delhi

Sonia Gandhi forms a three-member committee to try to keep the house in order.

New Delhi: To resolve the infighting in the Congress’ Punjab unit, Sonia Gandhi has formed a three-member committee comprising Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge as chairman, with AICC general secretary in-charge for Punjab affairs Harish Rawat and J.P. Aggarwal, to keep the house in order. All three senior leaders were there in the Congress war room on Saturday to decide the course of action to be taken in the coming days. A decision has been taken that all the MPs and MLAs of Punjab Congress would be coming down to Delhi on Monday and some of them would join virtually the meet.

It has been learnt that that the three-member panel would interact with MPs and MLAs and would listen to their grievances. Moreover, when needed, Rahul Gandhi would also join the meet to listen in and resolve the ongoing tussle. Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, Navjot Singh Sidhu and Bajwa would also be consulted but not on Monday.

Congress insiders are working on a formula for truce between Captain Amarinder Singh and Sidhu which may be in the form of offering deputy chief ministership to him, but sources say that Sidhu is keen to lead the party as chief in Punjab.

The party knows very well that if the dispute is not resolved, Sidhu may cause huge damage in next year’s Assembly elections. On the other hand, Captain Amrinder Singh remains the biggest face for the party in Punjab and has the backing of majority of MLAs as a popular faces of masses.

The high command being weak can’t ignore Captain and take decisions bypassing him; so the real challenge for the party and committee is to establish a balance between them, which Harish Rawat as gen secretary in-charge failed to do for the party.

While speaking to the media in Delhi, Rawat and J.P. Aggarwal said that they discussed the methodology to solve the problems and added that the only aim was to strengthen the party.