Bajwa manages to gather 8 Congress MLAs, one MP

Wednesday, 15/04/2015

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TALWANDI SABO: A day after 33 Punjab Congress MLAs issued a joint press statement against him, state party president Partap Singh Bajwa managed to get eight party legislators and a member of Parliament to accompany him on the dais at the party’s Baisakhi Mela conference in Damdama Sahib on Tuesday.

Punjab Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa with party legislator Lal Singh at the Baisakhi conference in Talwandi Sabo.

MLAs Parminder Singh Pinki, Kuljit Singh Nagra, Lal Singh, Brahm Mohindra, Bharat Bhushan Ashu, Ajit Inder Singh Mofar, Surinder Dawar and Bajwa’s wife Charanjit Kaur attended the conference along with Ludhiana MP Ravneet Singh Bittu. Folk singer-turnedpolitician Mohammad Sadique, who was recently disqualified as an MLA by the Punjab and Haryana high court, performed on the occasion but did not share the dais with other party leaders.

Captain Amarinder Singh’s loyalists, including party’s Malwa unit vice-president Gurpreet Singh Kangar, skipped the rally.

Though most of the MLAs avoided showering praise on Bajwa, he seemed relieved when Bittu warned party’s senior leaders not to ‘insult’ Congress vicepresident Rahul Gandhi over the party leadership issue.

“We will not tolerate anyone insulting Rahul Gandhi, even if he or she is our senior leader,” Bittu said, without naming Amarinder. Later, Bajwa said Rahul was the leader of the future for the Congress. “Rahul is ready to meet the aspirations of the youth as the Narendra Modi government has failed to live up to the people’s expectations. Rahul is all set to get a big position in the party,” said Bajwa.

Lal Singh said ‘infiltrators’ such as Jeet Mohinder Singh Sidhu, Arvind Khanna and Joginder Pal Jain had left the party. “More such people will leave the party in the coming days. And it will only be veteran Congressmen who will again get command of the party,” he said.

Later, talking to HT, Lal Singh declined to comment on Bittu’s warning to senior leaders. “I am a disciplined party worker and will voice my opinion on a platform within the party, whenever required.”

Interestingly, Bajwa reminded people about the achievements of then Congress government led by Amarinder. However, he hastened to add that the credit for the achievements went to the whole party, not to any individual. Former MLA and party candidate in the 2014 Talwandi Sabo byelection, Harminder Jassi, was also absent from the rally, organised by Kushbaz Singh Jattana, Youth Congress president of the Bathinda Lok Sabha constituency.

Bittu virtually named Jattana as the party candidate from Talwandi Sabo in the 2017 assembly elections and asked people to support him.