Sidhu made chairman of Cong's Punjab election panel

The Congress on Monday appointed the party's Punjab unit chief Navjot Sidhu as chairman of the state election committee.

The members of the all-important Punjab Pradesh election committee include chief minister and Congress legislature party leader Charanjit Singh Channi, Ambika Soni, chairperson of the coordination committee, Sunil Jakhar, chairman of the campaign committee, and Pratap Singh Bajwa, chairman of the manifesto committee.

"Congress president has approved the proposal of the formation of Pradesh Election Committee of Punjab Congress with immediate effect, with PCC chief Navjot Singh Sidhu as its chairman," an official statement from the party said.

All MPs from Punjab, both in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, are also members of the panel, besides all ministers of the Punjab government.

Former chief minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal and former PPCC chiefs H S Hanspal and Mohinder Singh Kaypee have also been included as members of the panel.

All India Congress Committee secretaries KL Sharma and Raminder Singh Amla, besides Punjab Congress senior vice president Lal Singh and working presidents of PPCC Kuljit Nagra, Sukhvinder Danny and Pawan Goyal are among the members of the panel.

Former ministers Balbir Singh Sidhu, Shyam Sunder Arora, Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi, Sadhu Singh Dharamsot and PPCC vice president Gurpreet Kangar and MLAs Ajaib Singh Bhatti and Navtej Singh Cheema have also been made members of the panel.

Chairman of SC department Raj Kumar Chabeewal, President of Punjab Mahila Congress Balbir Rani Sodhi, Punjab youth Congress chief Barinder Dhillon and Punjab unit chief of NSUI Akshay Sharma, besides chief organiser of Punjab Seva Dal Nirmal Khaira and Hamid Masih have also been included the committee.

The panel will take all election-related decisions of the party ahead of the Punjab assembly elections, which are slated early next year.