Navjot Sidhu skips Raja Warring's meeting in Amritsar

Rajmeet Singh

Chandigarh, April 15

Making task tough for newly appointed PCC chief Amrinder Raja Warring to unite party leaders, factionalism has again surfaced in the Punjab Congress, which is yet to emerge from the poll debacle in the recent Assembly elections.

Show of strength

Sources close to Navjot Sidhu said his meetings should be seen as a show of strength and a message for the party high command. Sidhu has been talking of supporting leaders with clean image.

As Warring went to Amritsar along with his working president Bharat Bhushan Ashu to meet senior party leaders on Friday, his predecessor Navjot Singh Sidhu, a former legislator from the city, was seen meeting disgruntled party leaders elsewhere. Sidhu met former MLA Amrik Dhillon, who has been expelled from the party, besides senior leader Lal Singh and former PCC chief Sunil Jakhar at their residence in Chandigarh and Panchkula, respectively.

Jakhar has been issued show-cause notice by the party for alleged derogatory remarks against party leaders and attributing motives to the leadership of thinking on communal lines while deciding the Punjab CLP leader. The party’s diktat of zero tolerance towards indiscipline seems to have failed to deter leaders such as former MLAs Navtej Cheema, Ashwani Sekhri, Rajinder Singh, Sukhwinder Singh Danny, who have been seen standing beside Sidhu during his meetings with party leaders over the past few days.

CLP leader Partap Singh Bajwa, who was seen alongside Warring and other newly appointed PCC office-bearers while paying obeisance at religious places in Amritsar, did not accompany them as they met other party leaders in the holy city. Majha leaders Sukhjinder Randhawa and Tript Rajinder Bajwa were also not seen in the holy city.

A senior party leader said there were certain leaders who were creating a pressure group against Punjab affairs incharge Harish Chaudhary and party leaders backed by him.