Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu on Wednesday said he has resigned as the party’s Punjab chief. The cricketer-turned-politician shared the information about his resignation on his twitter handle.
“As desired by the Congress President I have sent my resignation,” his tweet read.
Following the party’s drubbing in the recently held Assembly polls in five states, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday had asked its state unit chiefs in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Punjab and Manipur to put in their papers. The Congress was expected to be a major contender in what was expected to be a multi-cornered fight in the state assembly elections. But it was thrashed by the AAP, which won 92 of the total 117 assembly seats.
The resignations sought to “facilitate the reorganisation” of the state Congress units, according to Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala.
“Congress President, Smt. Sonia Gandhi has asked the PCC Presidents of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa & Manipur to put in their resignations in order to facilitate reorganisation of PCC’s,” he had said.
The state of Punjab, previously under Congress rule, had seen massive infighting between Navjot Singh Sidhu and then CM Capt Amarinder Singh, who was later replaced with Charanjit Singh Channi.
However, the party has now faced criticism over its dismal performance, with many party leaders, including Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot, blaming the Congress’s infighting for it. The grand old party saw a significant drop in vote share compared to the 2017 elections, with even Congress Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi losing both seats he ran for.
“We have made mistakes in Punjab. People did not like the internal battle of Congress. Everyone fights elections together and everyone participates. If there is politics in the name of polarization, casteism and religion then such results will come. Don’t panic, the final victory will be of truth,” Gehlot had earlier told News18.
Meanwhile, Amarinder Singh has held the Gandhis totally responsible for the rout of the Congress in the assembly polls, claiming that the party was comfortably placed in Punjab before he was unseated as chief minister. In a statement a day after the Congress Working Committee (CWC) took stock of the drubbing received by the party in five states, Singh took digs at the pompous state Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu and the corrupt Charanjit Singh Channi, who replaced him as CM.
After his ouster as CM last year, Amarinder Singh left the Congress and floated his own Punjab Lok Congress. He slammed the CWC for trying to put the blame for the Congress defeat in Punjab on him instead of gracefully admitting their own blunders.
The Congress has not only lost in Punjab but also in UP, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur and the Gandhis are entirely to blame for the party’s shameful defeat, he said. People across the country had lost faith in the leadership of the Gandhis, he said, referring to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
Amarinder Singh claimed several senior leaders within the party were blaming the infighting in Punjab Congress and the anti-party statements of Navjot Sidhu for its bad performance in the state. The party had dug its own grave in the border state the day they decided to back an unstable and pompous person like Navjot Sidhu, and naming a corrupt man like Charanjit Singh Channi as chief minister just months before the polls, he said in a statement here.
