New AICC in-charge Randhawa recounts his connection with Rajasthan

JAIPUR: State’s new AICC in-charge Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa has a Rajasthan connection. According to him, his grandfather was settled in Bundi before he shifted to Punjab in 1921.
He replaced Ajay Maken, who had resigned from the post in the aftermath of the failed CLP meeting on September 25 that was called to choose Gehlot’s successor as Rajasthan CM. Randhawa on his maidan visit to the desert state after the appointment reached Jaipur on Tuesday night thanked the party high command for reposing faith in him.
Randhawa, the former Punjab deputy chief minister and four-time MLA, is familiar with group politics in the party as he himself was once the camp follower of former chief minister Amarinder Singh and among the first to raise a rebellion against him in 2021 as he claims “when the former chief minister began to hurt the interest of the party.”
Randhawa was one of the frontrunners for the chief ministership when Charanjit Singh Channi was chosen just before Punjab assembly polls in September 2021. He settled for deputy CM.
A third-generation Congressman, his father Santokh Singh had served as Punjab Congress chief twice and was one of the most senior congressmen of his time. “My family shares over a century-old relations with the grand old party”, he said.
Asked about his priority, he said, “My priority will be to restore respect due to all Congress workers and leaders rising above group politics,” adding that for him, “the interest of the party is supreme and wanted to discharge his responsibility from the heart, not the head.”
“The party leaders should rise above ego clashes and if they become egoistic, the party will suffer. All should talk about the party instead of fighting over who is big and small,” he said. He is of the opinion that it is not the workers but the leaders who defeat the party by pulling each other’s legs.