Punjab CM Amarinder Singh likely to meet Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday

CHANDIGARH: Amid infighting in the Punjab Congress, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh is likely to meet party president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday, sources said.

Singh is likely to leave for Delhi on Tuesday morning, they said.

Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu has been at loggerheads with the chief minister, attacking him on issues like the alleged delay in the completion of a probe into the 2015 desecration of Sikh texts and the subsequent police firing on protesters.

The party high command has been trying to resolve the internal rift in the Punjab unit and there is talk of its revamp, with just months to go before the next assembly polls.

There is some speculation that Sidhu may get an important role in the planned revamp.

A few days back, Sidhu met Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in Delhi.

On June 22, Amarinder Singh appeared before a three-member AICC panel headed by leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, set up to resolve the infighting in the Punjab Congress.

But he returned to Chandigarh without an audience with party president Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi.

The panel had then asked Amarinder to deliver on 18 pending promises, including on the 2015 sacrilege issue and power purchase agreements signed by the previous government.

The panel had earlier met other party leaders and has submitted a report to the party high command.

Rahul Gandhi has also met several party leaders, including legislators from Punjab, for their views on what is needed to strengthen the party ahead of the 2022 assembly polls.

On June 23, AICC general secretary and party's Punjab affairs in-charge Harish Rawat had said that Congress president Sonia Gandhi would resolve all issues related to the state unit by early July and a united party would fight the next assembly elections.

Sidhu had begun criticising Amarinder Singh again after the Punjab and Haryana High Court in April quashed a probe into the 2015 Kotkapura firing case.

The CM has called his outbursts "total indiscipline".

Sidhu had resigned as a minister in Punjab after being divested of the Local Bodies portfolio in 2019.

PTI CHS VSD ASH ASH 07052014 NNNN