Five points taken up with CM Captain Amarinder Singh have started bearing fruit, says Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu

JALANDHAR: After finishing meeting party MLAs, newly-appointed Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu has started meetings party workers from Jalandhar on Thursday. He met local leaders and workers from Jalandhar and Kapurthala at district Congress committee office here.
Addressing the Congress workers he said the Congress would remain firm on the 18 points outlined by the top brass and already five point priority areas, which he took up with chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh a few days back, have started bearing fruits. He was apparently hinting at the directions given by the Punjab CM to cancel or revisit the power purchase agreements (PPAs).
He alleged that even solar power purchase agreements were grossly flawed. “Though solar power is available at Rs 1.99 per unit, Bikram Singh Majithia got signed contracts for solar power purchase from Rs 7 to Rs 17 per unit. It was absolutely clear that solar power rates would be coming down every year. Need is to scrap the faulty PPAs altogether,” he said.
As he talked about the power sector, Sidhu also hit out at ‘Delhi model’ saying that power subsidy was maximum to every sector as compared to other states, while in Delhi not only commercial and industrial sectors were getting power at high prices but also domestic sector was crying.
Punjab is the only state which gives subsidy of Rs 10,000 crore to its farmers, which was maximum in the country, while Delhi was giving total subsidy of Rs 1,700 crore only, he claimed. “Delhi model is nowhere near Punjab model,” he added.
Sidhu said like the stand taken on SYL canal, the three “illegal and unconstitutional” farm laws should be rejected by the Punjab assembly. “Amendments in these black laws will not work and these need to be rejected in toto in the state assembly, like courage was shown during SYL canal case,” he said.
The Amritsar East MLA emphasised that justice in sacrilege cases remained the biggest issue.
He said “the big fish in drug trade, who were named in the STF report”, were yet to be punished. “One who was actively patronising three persons named in drug trade would have to be punished,” he said.
He said that government should have dialogue with those out on streets to protest as “they are also our part”.
Jakhar too started feedback exercise from Jalandhar
Then Punjab Congress president Sunil Jakhar also started the exercise of getting feedback from workers from Jalandhar district on December 9, 2019. The feedback was largely negative about the working of the government and he had to discontinue the exercise to save the government from major embarrassment. Around six weeks later, in third week of January 2020, Congress president Sonia Gandhi formed a ‘Manifesto Implementation Committee’ and ‘PPCC Coordination Committee’. However, neither of the committees did any work.
All Jalandhar MLAs attend but just one from Kapurthala
While all the six Congress MLAs from Jalandhar district were present during state party chief meet with workers, from Kapurthala district one — Phagwara MLA B S Dhaliwal — out of four turned up. Rana Gurjeet Singh from Kapurthala, Navtej Singh Cheema from Sultanpur Lodhi and Bholath MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira – did not attend the meeting. Party workers from these constituencies were present though.
The meeting with workers from Jalandhar was a messy affair due to rush of people and the format of getting feedback from workers was lost. Only Sidhu spoke and tried to galvanise workers. However in the second half, he interacted with workers from four assembly segments from Kapurthala district.
‘Focus on organisation’
Addressing party workers, Sidhu said, “Perhaps I may not speak publicly after this as now my work is of organisation. I intend to use strength of this organisation to build real honour of the government in entire Punjabis.”
‘Asradaar Sardar’
While Navjot Singh Sidhu mentioned other MLAs also by name, he reserved the special remarks for his loyalist Pargat Singh calling him ‘Asardaar Sardar’, “who always thinks and talks about the team and which is built with dialogue”.