Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 27

After days of hiatus in the infighting between warring factions of the state Congress, the party high command is learnt to have finally constituted a three-member committee to listen to the Chief Minister’ camp and disgruntled leaders.

The panel comprises Congress MP Mallikarjun Kharge, former MP Jai Parkash Aggarwal, and AICC general secretary and Punjab affairs in charge Harish Rawat. Both Kharge and Aggarwal are said to be confidants of the Gandhi family.

The dissident Congress leaders, led by ministers Sukhjinder Randhawa and Charanjit Channi and MLA Pargat Singh have been questioning the Chief Minister over delay in giving justice in sacrilege case and subsequent police firing incidents. Pargat has gone to the extent of saying the popularity graph of the CM had gone down since the last elections.

Randhawa and Channi had held meetings with Rajya Sabha MP Partap Singh Bajwa and Navjot Singh Sidhu. Some ministers and MLAs had also extended support to the rebel leaders, but did not go public. On the other hand, the Chief Minister’s camp has been going all out to woo the MLAs by addressing their long-pending issues.

It is learnt the dissident leaders had sought a direct audience with party’s former president Rahul Gandhi, while refusing to air their grouse in virtual meeting with the high command as they feared their phones were being tapped by the state government.

A senior Congress leader said the three-member committee would listen to the disgruntled party leaders and CM’s loyalists, besides other MLAs.