Sidhu-Amarinder feud ‘organisational issue’, party watching: Congress: Amid infighting in its Punjab unit with former minister Navjot Singh Sidhu training guns at Chief Amarinder Singh over the 2015 sacrilege issue and calling for party leaders to go to Delhi and raise it with the top leadership, the Congress on Friday said it was seized of the matter and will soon act.
Congress General Secretary, Organisation, K.C. Venugopal said: “We are watching it and will take a call on it” while terming it an “organisational issue”.
Sources say that the party is likely to constitute a committee to look into the issue in Punjab, where Assembly elections are due next year.
Cricketer-turned-politician Sidhu, who had been lying low since his resignation from the state Cabinet in July 2019, has launched scathing attacks all this month against the Chief Minister over his government’s action over the alleged desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib in 2015 when the Akali Dal-BJP government was in power, and accused him of “shielding the Badals”.
Charging the Chief Minister with taking action against his own party leaders instead, Sidhu, in a tweet on Thursday, said: “In 2019, I began & ended my Election Campaign in Punjab seeking – Justice for Sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib Ji & punishing the culprits & the ONE shielding them… Now, Our MLAs & Party Workers must go to Delhi & speak the Truth of Punjab to our High Command, as I regularly do.”
Earlier, he had tweeted: “Ministers, MLAs & MPs raising People’s Issues are strengthening the Party, fulfilling their Democratic Duty & exercising their Constitutional Right… But everyone who speaks the truth becomes your enemy. Thus, you threaten your party colleagues, exhibiting your fear & insecurity”.
As his attacks on Amarinder Singh saw pushback from other ministers, who demanded his suspension from the party for indiscipline, Sidhu had urged him to stop firing from his “colleagues’ shoulders”, and asked “… Who will protect you in court of the Great Guru?”
Taking a tough stance last month, Amarinder Singh had said that if Sidhu “wants to contest against him, then he is free to do so but that would only lead to Sidhu meeting the fate of (former Army chief and Akali Dal candidate) General J.J. Singh who had lost his security deposit”.
He had also challenged Sidhu to clearly spell out whether he is a Congress member or not.
