CHANDIGARH: Infighting in the Punjab Congress came out in the open Thursday at a protest meeting when a colleague dared Navjot Singh Sidhu to take names if he felt anyone in the party was involved in wrongdoing.
The embarrassing situation for the party arose when Punjab Congress youth chief Brinder Singh Dhillon interrupted Sidhu, a former Punjab Congress Committee (PCC) chief, in his speech.
Sidhu was addressing the Congress leaders and workers during the protest against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government over continued rise in petrol, diesel, and cooking gas prices outside the Punjab Congress Bhawan here.
Sidhu spoke about promoting people with clean image for the party's revival in the wake of its decimation in the recent Punjab assembly elections.
"I did not take anybody's name nor will I do that. 'Kyonki yeh public jo hai sab jaanti hai' (because the public knows everything)," Sidhu said cryptically.
He said it will do no one any good, if they choose to fill their own coffers.
"No matter how many addresses you deliver, nothing will happen," he said.
He said he would be the first one to take a stand if any "false" FIR was lodged against any Congress worker.
"But if money is recovered from anybody's house, I will not stand with him," he said.
"Kyonki choran naal nahin khadna (I am not going to support the corrupt)."
"I will not point a finger at anyone. A hundred people may have spoken against me but Sidhu never spoke against any Congress worker," he said.
Dhillon stood and interrupted Sidhu shouting at him to draw his attention.
"Sidhu sahab, what you are doing is wrong," Dhillon said confronting him.
"Kyon nahi naam laoge, kyon nahin naam laoge (why won't you take names?)," Dhillon asked Sidhu in Punjabi.
"If something is wrong then call it out, and if something is right then say that too," he said, pleading Sidhu to name those who he thinks indulged in corruption.
Dhillon then told Sidhu if he was not going to take names then he was indulging in mere "drama".
"Phir tusi drama kar rahe ho (then you are doing a drama)," he said.
The heat from his party worker made Sidhu stop his address.
Later, Dhillon through a tweet appealed for unity in the party and clarified that his outburst was not against any individual.
"No fight against any individual, we should not be throwing mud at each other as it was a collective defeat. We have suffered because of infighting and if we do not course correct, we will be finished. Time to stand together and fight for public not for individual glorification," he posted.
A section of Punjab Congress leaders have been holding meetings recently and batting for a key role for Sidhu ahead of the likely announcement of the new PPCC chief.
The Congress received a drubbing in the Punjab assembly polls winning only 18 seats, as the Aam Aadmi Party stormed to power bagging 92 of the 117 assembly segments.
Sidhu was defeated by AAP candidate and political greenhorn Jeevan Jyot Kaur from Amritsar East constituency.
Following the poll debacle in five states -- Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur, and Punjab -- Congress president Sonia Gandhi had asked the party's state unit chiefs to put in their papers, and Sidhu, too, tendered his resignation.