Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi is coming to Delhi today to meet party leadership amid the ongoing infighting in the party’s state unit.
New Delhi, India, October 1 : Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi is coming to Delhi today to meet party leadership amid the ongoing infighting in the party’s state unit. Earlier on Thursday, Channi had met Navjot Singh Sidhu who resigned from the Punjab Congress chief recently.
According to report, Navjot Singh Sidhu will continue as the Punjab Congress chief and a coordination panel is likely to be set up, which is expected to be consulted before any major decisions by the Punjab government in future.
Sources said that the decision was reached after an over two-hour meeting at the Punjab Congress Bhavan between Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and Sidhu, who had resigned from the post of the state party chief on Tuesday. The panel may comprise the CM, Navjot Singh Sidhu and a representative of the AICC.
The All-India Congress Committee (AICC) is expected to make an announcement in this regard. However, it is still unclear how differences over the appointment of the DGP and the AG will be dealt with.
Miffed Sidhu on Wednesday had raised a question over the appointments of the DGP, state’s advocate general and “tainted” leaders. Besides Channi and Sidhu, the meeting was attended by senior Congress leader and central observer Harish Chaudhary, minister Pargat Singh and Punjab Congress working president Kuljit Nagra. Minister Raj Kumar Verka, MLAs Inderbir Singh Bolaria, Avtar Singh Junior and PPCC working president Pawan Goel were in another room.
There was no press briefing after the meeting between Sidhu and Channi. Channi left the venue around 6 pm while Sidhu came out about half an hour later. No party leader spoke to the media after the meeting concluded.
The meeting came after Channi reached out to Sidhu and offered to resolve issues through talks.
Just before his meeting with Channi, Sidhu attacked the state’s new DGP, alleging that he wrongly indicted two Sikh youths in a desecration case and gave a clean chit to the Badals. The desecration of a religious text allegedly took place in Punjab’s Faridkot district in 2015, whose investigation was handed over by the then Parkash Singh Badal-led government to an SIT led by current DGP Iqbal Preet Singh Sahota. Sahota was given the additional charge of the state’s DGP by the Charanjit Singh Channi-led government.
