Battle lines are drawn in Congress, but chief minister’s baiters remain divided

JALANDHAR: Though battle lines are drawn between chief minister Amarinder Singh and MLA Navjot Singh Sidhu and discontentment is brewing within Punjab Congress, the biggest relief for the chief minister is that his opponents are not yet united.
Though many Congress leaders have expressed dissatisfaction with the way things have happened in sacrilege and police firing cases — and a known CM baiter and Rajya Sabha member Shamsher Singh Dullo has expressed even more bitterness — yet, they have also maintained distance from one another. The only exception is a meeting with Sidhu at Panchkula a few days ago in which two minsters — Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and Charanjit Singh Channi — and around half dozen MLAs also participated but things have not moved forward beyond that.
In the last over two weeks, seven ministers and nearly half dozen MLAs have come out openly in support of the CM and have attacked Sidhu. CM’s camp even managed a string of statements from four ministers. It is learnt that most of the MLAs are ambivalent in their stand and are obviously ‘waiting and watching’.
Sources in the Congress have revealed that these are not just issues of competitiveness among a few leaders, but also of trust deficit. “The episode of 2019, when MLAs tried to group themselves to put pressure on chief minster to deliver on sacrilege and police firing cases in last week of August and first week of September 2019, which was diffused by the CM by appointing six of them as his advisors, caused a lot of trust deficit among the MLAs. They are much apprehensive about the electoral prospects. It is now this element of apprehension that can force them to sink their differences,” said a Congress MLA.
“High command is remaining silent and Sidhu is not yet opening his mind or even accessibility though he has been mounting his attack on the CM consistently with no signs of relenting. These are the other factors that are keeping MLAs from taking any sides,” said another MLA, himself is a fence sitter.
Sources in Congress revealed that MLAs are keeping their options open and are waiting for high command intervention.