War of words again in state Cong before Dhuri test -CAPTAIN CHALLENGES BAJWA’S DECISION, SODHI STEPS DOWN

Sunday, 29/03/2015

http://epaper.dailypostindia.com/Details.aspx?id=127698&boxid=57694&uid=&dat=2015-03-29

Chandigarh : War of words has erupted once again in the already disintegrated Punjab Congress, this time before the crucial Dhuri Assembly by-election. With less than a week left for the Dhuri showdown slated for April 11, the two rival factions in the main Opposition party are at it again. Taking up the cudgels against the state party chief Partap Singh Bajwa, who continues on the post despite his open lobbying to remove him, Congress Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha Captain Amarinder Singh on Saturday fired another salvo by strongly disapproving of Bajwa’s attempts to what he called “creating dual power centers” for Dhuri Assembly by-election campaign.

Bajwa had nominated former Sangrur MP Vijay Inder Singla as separate election in-charge even as PPCC vice-president and MLA Rana Gurmeet Singh Sodhi had already been assigned the task.

The Captian also took strong exception to PPCC not inviting him for Sunday’s crucial party meeting at Dhuri, while all other senior leaders, including the CLP leader Sunil Jakhar and former Chief Minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal have been invited to chalk out the campaign strategy there.

In a statement issued here, Capt Amarinder said, since the PPCC president has moved his entire office and secretariat to Dhuri in an apparent bid to create two power centres for the campaign which, will obviously confuse the Congress workers and supporters, it may be difficult for him to go to Dhuri lest the workers get confused and disoriented as to whose guidelines to follow during the campaign. Wishing the PPCC good luck, he said, he wanted to campaign in Dhuri and had been very much there on the day of nomination also. “But PCC apparently did not want me there for the reasons best known to it,” he remarked.

Adding fuel to the fire, Rana Gurmeet Singh Sodhi, on Saturday evening, opted out of being in-charge for the Dhuri Assembly by-election campaign, saying there was no point in being the in-charge when the PPCC president had appointed a separate election in-charge there. In a statement, Rana Sodhi said that it was unprecedented that there shall be two election in-charges for an Assembly by-election. “Since it will only create confusion among the cadres, I have decided to opt out as the campaign in-charge as Vijay Inder Singla is competent enough to perform the job,” he said.