In Punjab, Congress seems to be heading towards another huge crisis ahead of the assembly election. Five of the eight Congress Lok Sabha MPs from Punjab are boycotting Rahul Gandhi’s visit to the state on Thursday, according to reports. Citing sources, reports say that the five MPs do not find Rahul Gandhi’s leadership reasonable and unless Rahul Gandhi relinquishes his unofficial presidency, these MPs have threatened to leave the party.
WATCH | Rift in Congress as 5 Congress MPs openly reject Rahul Gandhi’s leadership
— Republic (@republic) January 27, 2022
Tune in for more details: https://t.co/oefJxIhn1D pic.twitter.com/fHkgIx19cB
Jasbir Singh Gill, Amarinder Singh’s wife Preneet Kaur, ex-Union Minister Manish Tewari, Congress’ Lok Sabha top whip Ravneet Singh Bittu, and Mohammad Sadique are among the disgruntled MPs, according to a report in Republic.
Rahul Gandhi, along with the Congress’ 109 candidates for the Punjab elections, paid obeisance at the Golden Temple earlier in the Day. Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal downplayed the accusations of a “boycott,” saying they were “baseless rumours” and “not true.”
Congress won 77 seats in the 117-member Punjab Assembly in 2017, while Shiromani Akali Dal only managed to win 18 seats. The politics of the state has been in chaos since Navjot Singh Sidhu was appointed chief of the Punjab Congress. Captain Amarinder Singh resigned as Chief Minister, saying that the party had humiliated him and labelling Navjot Singh Sidhu a national security threat. Captain Amarinder Singh afterwards formed his own political party in preparation for the upcoming Punjab Assembly elections.
Punjab’s 2022 Legislative Assembly elections will take place in a single phase on February 20, 2022, with results announced on March 10.
