CHANDIGARH: Days after a Congress panel constituted by party interim president Sonia Gandhi to resolve infighting in Punjab met party MLAs and leaders in the state, the infighting within the Congress’ Punjab unit appears far from over.
A poster war has erupted between loyalists of Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and party MLA and former cabinet minister Navjot Singh Sidhu. Numerous posters featuring Sidhu have been put up in Patiala, the hometown of Amarinder, while posters of the chief minister have appeared in many places in the holy city of Amritsar
Sources said a section within the party is of the view that unless the sacrilege case is brought to its logical conclusion, it will be hard for the Amarinder-led government to face the public. Also, a section within the party believes that the government had failed in fulfilling many of the promises made before it came to power, including renegotiating power purchase agreements and making the report on drug mafia submitted to the Punjab and Haryana High Court public.
A senior Congress leader said on condition of anonymity that the disgruntled faction is trying to put pressure on the party high command to change the leadership. The poster war has only added to the tensions. Posters saying ‘whole of Punjab is with Sidhu’ has come up in Patiala. Posters calling him the ‘voice of the farmers’ are also doing rounds.
Meanwhile, Amarinder loyalists have put up posters with messages ‘Captain for 2022’ and ‘There’s only one captain’ in many areas of the holy city of Amritsar. Amid all these, state technical education minister Charanjit Singh Channi, who had criticised Amarinder, had put out his own poster saying “in every household, there’s talk that Channi solves everyone’s problems”.