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. The fact is that people across the country have lost faith in the leadership of the Gandhis. Punjab Lok Congress chief and former Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh on Monday hit out at the Congress Working Committee (CWC) for trying to put the blame on him instead.
Pointing out that many senior leaders within the party were blaming the infighting in the Punjab Congress and the ‘anti-party’ statements of Navjot Sidhu for the party’s poor performance in Punjab, Amarinder Singh said the Congress was comfortably placed in the state till he was sacked to favour “certain sycophants”.
“The party dug its own grave in the border state the day they decided to back an unstable and pompous person like Navjot Sidhu and name a corrupt man like Charanjit Singh Channi as chief minister months before the polls,” he said.
Amarinder Singh added, “The Congress leaders who are claiming there was strong anti-incumbency against me conveniently forgot that I won every election for the party since 2017, the last being the civic bodies election in February 2021. These leaders are just sycophants who are trying to shield the family by shifting blame and closing their eyes to the writing on the wall.” He also stated that the Congress had no future under the present setup.
Captain Amarinder Singh also said that the real reason for the Congress defeat in Punjab was the failure of the high command to rein in people like Navjot Sidhu who” indulged in tarnishing the image of the party for personal gains”. He said, “In their efforts to discredit me, the party high command joined hands with Navjot and others, and in the process ended up discrediting the party totally.”
Captain Amarinder Singh said that though he did not owe any explanation to the Congress party, he had chosen to react just to clarify his position to the people of Punjab, to whom he still felt accountable. The former chief minister said that he had been sending fortnightly reports on his government’s achievements to Congress-acting president Sonia Gandhi. “Even three weeks before they sacked me, I had offered to quit but Sonia Gandhi had insisted that I stay and lead the party in 2022 elections,” he said.
Captain Amarinder Singh resigned as the chief minister of Punjab and quit the Congress party after a fallout with Punjab Congress chief Navjot Sidhu last year. The party then appointed Charanjit Channi as the chief minister and he set up a new party, the Punjab Lok Congress. In the Punjab election, the Aam Aadmi Party won a majority and ousted the Channi-led Congress government. The PLC won zero seats in the election.
