Warring denies division in state Congress

A day after the Tarn Taran bypoll drubbing, Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring on Saturday scoffed at speculations that the party leadership was divided in the state.

“The party remains united and the unity was best exhibited during the Tarn Taran bypoll,” he said in a statement here.

Warring pointed out that the party was pitched against odds in Tarn Taran.

He said the constituency’s core voter base was Panthic and the Congress had won this seat only once during the last several decades.

Besides, he added, it was faced a hostile administration and the police, which were unabashedly siding with the ruling AAP candidate. He said on the other hand, “there was a gangster who was blatantly supporting the Akali candidate and intimidating the Congress supporters with open threatening calls”.

“Despite that our workers put up a brave fight under a united leadership,” he said, while asking people to name one single party leader who did not campaign for the party. Warring asserted that the bypoll result was not any referendum on anyone.

Ashu backs state Cong president’s remarks

Within hours of the Warring statement, his bête noire Bharat Bhushan Ashu, a former working president of the state Congress, in a message said in the Ludhiana bypoll earlier this year, it was the Congress versus the state government machinery.

He said but the media narrative attributed the loss to party infighting. “But in Tarn Taran, the Congress fought united,” he said. A senior leader while interpreting Ashu’s statement said the leader was pointing towards leaders putting a united front, but the party lost due to other reason like the choice of candidate.

Daggers were out in the state Congress immediately after the Tarn Taran bypoll results were declared, with party leaders seeking to fix responsibility for the debacle.

In the recent memory, it is perhaps for the first time that any party candidate has lost security deposits.

The result came as huge embarrassment to the top state leadership already facing dissent over the selection of 27 new District Congress Committee (DCC) chiefs.