- Sunday, May 05, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
DAYS after the leadership of the Indian National Congress publicly announced that it has asked the chief minister of the North Indian state of Punjab, Captain Amarinder Singh, to focus on implementing the party’s 18 key poll manifesto within a timeframe, revolting party leader from the state Navjot Singh Sindhu met Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in New Delhi on Wednesday (30).
The meeting, according to Sidhu’s team, lasted for several hours. The leader, a former cricketer, later tweeted confirming the meeting with Vadra, who is the daughter of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and general secretary of the All India Congress Committee in charge of the state of Uttar Pradesh.
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On Tuesday (29), former Congress president Rahul Gandhi was asked about the claim made by Sidhu that he was set to meet the Gandhis and he said no such meeting was planned.
“There is no meeting. I don’t know what fuss you are making…,” he told reporters while leaving his home in Delhi.
Congress top leadership trying to resolve Punjab feud
While the details about Sidhu’s meeting with Vadra were not known immediately, it has been reported that the Gandhi siblings have been trying to put the Punjab Congress’s house in order. Assembly elections in the state are due in 2022 and the party has exploded over clashes between chief minister Singh and Sidhu who quit the state cabinet after an alleged downgrading of his role in 2019. Sidhu reportedly was set to meet Rahul Gandhi as well.
Rahul Gandhi has reportedly met several leaders from Punjab over the past few days. A panel of three Congress leaders has been asked to take feedback from members of the Punjab Assembly and members from the state to the Parliament as well as other leaders and recommend a solution for changes in the state government and the state Congress unit ahead of the 2022 polls.
In these circumstances, the meeting between Sidhu, a former Bharatiya Janata Party leader who joined the Congress in 2017, and Vadra is being considered significant.
