After dancing the Bhangra with college kids, telling his security detail to vamoose so he could schmooze with the Janata and clambering up an electricity poll to fix erratic power supply, Charanjit Singh Channi, clearly a man of the people, donned a new avatar on Sunday, October 31, 2021.
The decision was reached after an over two-hour meeting at the Punjab Congress Bhavan between chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi and Sidhu, who had resigned from the post of the state party chief on Tuesday.
He also said he even declined the post of deputy chief minister offered by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to him.
Taking on his own party's government, Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu on Sunday asked people whether they were getting cable TV connection and sand at the cheap rates announced recently.
"A hundred years ago, Britishers had called Bhagat Singh a terrorist and 100 years later, history is repeating when all these parties want to prove Bhagat Singh's follower (Kejriwal) as a terrorist, but people know the reality," he said.
The ED action, sources said, has been initiated after taking cognisance of a 2018 FIR of the Punjab Police against some companies and individuals alleged to be involved in illegal sand mining in the state.
On Wednesday night, Sidhu's media adviser Surinder Dalla claimed that Sidhu has been officially intimated that he could go on November 20 instead of November 18.
Pargat Singh, Raj Kumar Verka, Gurkirat Singh Kotli, Sangat Singh Gilzian, Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, Kuljit Nagra and Rana Gurjit Singh are likely to be included in the cabinet, according to the sources.
Navjot Singh Sidhu was not part of the Channi-led 'jatha' (group) which went to pay obeisance at the gurdwara.
The five-state assembly poll results announced on Thursday brought gloom for several political heavyweights, including two current and five former chief ministers, who lost the electoral battle from their respective seats.
Soon after taking the oath of office, the newly-sworn in Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi said his government is standing with farmers and will appeal to the Centre to withdraw the three farm laws.
Party president Sonia Gandhi, former chief Rahul Gandhi, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Congress chief ministers Ashok Gehlot of Rajasthan, Bhupesh Baghel of Chhattisgarh and Charanjit Channi of Punjab attended the meeting.
Uttam Ghosh offers his take on the weekend's whirlwind political developments in Punjab.
Amid the ongoing turmoil in the Punjab Congress, former state party chief Sunil Jakhar on Thursday said there should be an end to attempts to undermine the authority of the Punjab chief minister time and again.
Last month, the Channi government replaced the state's advocate general A P S Deol after strong opposition from Sidhu.
The Charanjit Singh Channi-led government in Punjab on Thursday shunted Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan and appointed Anirudh Tewari in her place.
A social activist, a young law graduate, a debutante, and an eye surgeon -- Punjab polls gave gave birth to a number of giant killers from the Aam Aadmi Party, who drubbed such stalwarts as Navjot Singh Sidhu, the Badals, and even Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi.
"We did not find any sacrilege attempt or any evidence to back it. One person ran the gurdwara. This thing has moved to murder and inquiry is on," Channi said.
'Politics is in a mess. Good people have to join to clean it up.'
With the Aam Aadmi Party looking set for a clean sweep in the Punjab assembly polls, its leader Raghav Chadha on Thursday said the party will emerge as the national and natural replacement of the Congress in the coming days.
Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar's remarks on Pakistan sparked a political row on Friday, with his party quick to dissociate itself from the comments while the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party latched on to them, accusing the Congress of being an apologist for Pakistan and the terrorism emanating from its soil.
Nothing exemplifies this Sikh khundak (revenge) better than the fact that all the tallest names in the state lost their election to novices fielded by AAP.
His tweet pressing the Charanjit Singh Channi-led government to change the director general of police and state's advocate general appears to indicate that he continues to remain unhappy over certain key appointments.
Glimpses from the campaign trail on Thursday, February 17, 2022.
The party also promised to end the mafia raj by creating corporations for the sale of liquor and sand mining.
'If the Congress wants to keep the ship afloat, it will have to bury the differences.'
The action being contemplated is based on the findings submitted by a Supreme Court-appointed committee which probed the security breach during Modi's visit.
The game intensified after Congress fielded Channi from a second seat and Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia chose to take on Sidhu from the Amritsar East seat.
The chief ministers of the two Congress-ruled states, along with party leader Rahul Gandhi, have arrived in Lucknow, from where they intend to go to Lakhimpur Kheri to meet the families of the victims.
Singh (80) had floated the Punjab Lok Congress last year after quitting the Congress.
"The Punjab government is running just like the Modi government. Doing headline management to hide its failure. After winning on the slogan of bringing change, it is doing politics of revenge," he also said in a tweet.
'The PM of India was 20 km away from the Pakistan border and he is one of the persons under extreme threat from that country and they put his life in danger.'
Sidhu made the remark welcoming the change, ushered by the people and emphasising that their verdict should be 'humbly accepted'.
"What are her qualifications? She is just Sonu Sood's sister," Harjot Kamal said.
Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi on Friday announced to provide Rs 2 lakh as compensation to 83 people arrested by Delhi Police for carrying out a tractor rally in the national capital on January 26.
Slogans of 'Shaheed Amar Rahe' and 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' rent the air as military vehicles carrying the mortal remains of the three soldiers reached their respective villages. Anti-Pakistan slogans were also raised.
Several political parties had approached the EC to postpone the polls in the state in view of Ravidas Jayanti on February 16.
Rawat had played a crucial role in the removal of Amarinder Singh as chief minister of Punjab, who was replaced by Charanjit Singh Channi.
Among these are Labh Singh Ugoke, who defeated former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi in the Bhadaur assembly segment by a margin of 37,558 votes, and Gurmeet Singh Khuddian, who beat Shiromani Akali Dal patriarch Parkash Singh Badal in his traditional Lambi seat by 11,396 votes.
Amarinder Singh on Monday held the Gandhis totally responsible for the rout of the Congress in the assembly polls, claiming that the party was "comfortably placed" in Punjab before he was unseated as chief minister.
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