Amarinder Singh To Meet Sonia Gandhi: Punjab Congress Crisis

Amarinder Singh to meet Sonia Gandhi, Efforts to end squabble in Congress: Punjab Congress Crisis.

Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh will meet Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday amid efforts to end the infighting in the Punjab Congress.

Earlier on June 22, Amarinder Singh had met a three-member AICC panel headed by Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge but returned to Chandigarh without meeting party president Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi.

Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu has confronted the Chief Minister on issues such as the alleged delay in completing the investigation into the sacrilege of Sikh scriptures in 2015 and the subsequent police firing on protesters.

Sidhu started criticizing Amarinder Singh in April after the Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed the investigation into the Kotkapura firing case.

At the same time, CM Amarinder has described his displeasure as ‘complete indiscipline’.

The central leadership is looking for a way to end the factionalism in the party ahead of the assembly elections in the state next year.

For this, a panel was constituted by Sonia Gandhi, which held talks with party MLAs including Amarinder Singh and Navjot Singh Sidhu.

Sidhu had presented his stand by meeting Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and former Congress President Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi last week.

Other senior leaders of the Punjab Congress also held meetings with Rahul Gandhi for four days in the national capital.

The AICC panel includes Mallikarjun Kharge, JP Agarwal, and Harish Rawat.

After Sidhu’s meeting with Rahul and Priyanka recently, party leader Harish Rawat had expressed hope that issues related to the party’s Punjab unit would be resolved soon.

Next year’s Punjab Assembly elections are seen as crucial for Congress as it is one of the few states where the party is still in power.