CM Capt Amarinder Singh’s staunch loyalists Sukhjinder Randhawa, Tript Bajwa now lead rebellion against him

Ravi Dhaliwal

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Tribune News Service

Gurdaspur, August 24

Cabinet Ministers Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa have fallen out with CM Capt Amarinder Singh’s camp despite being his steadfast loyalists for the past several years.

Bureaucrats confused

An unusual fallout of the spat is the uncertainty gnawing at bureaucrats in Gurdaspur, the home district of both Randhawa and Bajwa. Senior administration and police officers clandestinely admit they are confused over the hierarchy to be followed.

What is rankling observers is the fact that they were considered to be dyed-in-the-wool supporters of the CM and would “hear no evil, speak no evil and see no evil” when it came to Capt Amarinder.

Both Randhawa and Bajwa, at one time, were fiercely blinded with faithfulness towards Capt Amarinder even when he was not the CM. In 2013, when the Congress high command catapulted then Lok Sabha MP Partap Singh Bajwa as the state Congress head, these leaders stood behind Capt Amarinder like a rock. They often changed the political dynamics of the party to ensure nothing went awry for their boss. They rested only after their boss took the CM’s oath for the second time after remaining in the wilderness from 2007 till 2017.

An unusual fallout of the spat is the uncertainty gnawing at bureaucrats in Gurdaspur, the home district of both Randhawa and Bajwa. Senior administration and police officers clandestinely admit they are confused over the hierarchy to be followed. “If we listen to them we run the risk of getting a bad name in the CM’s office. And if we do not obey their diktats, we run the risk of facing the music from them. Both ways, we have been caught in a cleft stick,” said a top officer.

Congressmen were astonished at the allegiance displayed by them when Partap Bajwa was made the PPCC chief. They organised functions and rallies against Bajwa and went all out to displace him from the throne. “They did not rest till, after a prolonged battle, Bajwa was finally replaced with Capt Amarinder in 2016. This is why we are amazed at the alacrity with which they have now decided to detach themselves from Capt Amarinder’s bandwagon,” claimed a sitting legislator.

When the CM formed his Cabinet for the first time, both these politicians were considered as certainties. While Bajwa was made a Cabinet Minister, Randhawa was left out due to pressure exerted on the CM by a powerful lobby. Nine months later, he was made Cooperation and Jails Minister after Randhawa got Sunil Jakhar a 20,000-plus lead from his Assembly seat of Dera Baba Nanak. When Preneet Kaur contested the Patiala seat after Capt Amarinder vacated it following his win in the 2014 LS poll from Amritsar, it was Tript Bajwa who camped in Patiala and managed her campaign.