A meeting of the Punjab Congress Legislative Party, which was slated for 11 am on Sunday, has been deferred, with party sources saying that a consensus is yet to be made on the name of the new CLP leader.
Amid the ongoing rift in the Punjab Congress unit, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) has called a meeting of the state's Congress Legislative Party.
Sources said the party has also tasked its senior leaders to be observers at the meeting of the Congress Legislature Party in Haryana to elect its new leader.
A resolution to this effect was passed unanimously in a meeting of the CLP in Chandigarh.
Ahead of Amarinder Singh's resignation as Punjab chief minister on Saturday, over 50 Congress legislators from Punjab had written to party chief Sonia Gandhi seeking his replacement, highly placed party sources said.
The development has come amid a power tussle that polarised the ruling party in the state headed for elections in just about four months.
Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, a minister in the outgoing cabinet of Amarinder Singh whose name is doing the rounds among the probables to be the new leader of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) in Punjab, on Sunday asserted that he has never hankered after posts.
Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, a minister in the outgoing cabinet of Amarinder Singh, is likely to be the state's new chief minister, Congress sources said on Sunday.
Navjot Singh Sidhu on Friday skipped a meeting held by newly-appointed Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring with several party leaders from Amritsar.
The Congress naming Channi, a Dalit face who comes from the Rupnagar district in the state's Malwa belt, assumes significance as Punjab has a population of nearly 32 per cent from the community.
The Congress picked Charanjit Singh Channi as the next chief minister of Punjab, making him the first Dailt to hold the post in the state, a day after Amarinder Singh resigned following a bitter power tussle in the party.
In his resignation letter to Sonia Gandhi he said that despite knowing him "for the better part of his 52 years in public life" and "that too at a deeply personal level", she never "understood" him or his "character".
Congress chief had accepted the resignation of Punjab PCC chief Shamsher Singh Dullo, but had asked him to continue on the post till the appointment of the next PCC president.
"Sidhu could not manage a thing. I know him very well. Don't think that he is some sort of magic word for Punjab. He is going to be a disaster," he said.
Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi also joined Bharat Jodo Yatra in Seelampur.
Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and chief ministers of Congress-ruled states of Rajasthan, Punjab and Chhattisgarh are among those named by the party as its star campaigners in Uttar Pradesh.
'Everything else is a sham.'
"Notwithstanding my personal anguish, I hope this will not cause any damage to the hard-earned peace and development in the state," Singh wrote in his letter to Gandhi
On poll eve, both the BJP and the Congress claimed they were headed towards a majority and would form the government.
He said had the alliance with Goa Forward gone through, the Congress would have got majority in the state and that it was unfair to now make him a "villain".
In a major exercise ahead of Lok Sabha polls, Congress on Thursday night constituted screening committees for all states and union territories for early selection of candidates.
Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, IT expert Nandan Nilekani and cricketer Mohd Kaif are among 194 candidates as Congress tonight released the first list of its nominees for Lok Sabha polls that contains several new and young faces.
She noted that the democracy was at peril under the Modi government and alleged that it was misusing and abusing its mandate in the "most dangerous" fashion, the sources said.
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