After taking charge at the state Congress headquarters, the cricketer-turned-politician said there was no difference between an ordinary worker of the party and its state unit chief.
Chidambaram said that Operation Black Thunder was the right way to retrieve the Golden Temple, by keeping the Army out of the Sikh worship place.
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and state Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu on Friday agreed to set up a 10-member strategic policy group to ensure better coordination between the party and the state government and expedite implementation of various government programmes.
A resolution to this effect was passed unanimously in a meeting of the CLP in Chandigarh.
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.
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 four ministers -- Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and Charanjit Singh Channi -- and around two dozen legislators met in Chandigarh at the residence of Bajwa on Tuesday.
Sidhu and Amarinder Singh have been at loggerheads for the past some time, with the Amritsar (East) MLA recently attacking the CM over the desecration cases.
Governor Banwarilal Purohit administered the oath of office and secrecy to the 10 ministers at Punjab Bhawan in Chandigarh.
The move comes a day after Channi reached out to Sidhu and offered to resolve issues through talks.
The development has come amid a power tussle that polarised the ruling party in the state headed for elections in just about four months.
Agriculture Minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal says she will return to Punjab only when Chief Minister Amarinder Singh is removed.
Congress leader Charanjit Singh Channi was on Monday sworn in as the chief minister of Punjab, making him the first Dalit to hold the top post in the state.
Devendra Fadnavis will lead the new Mahayuti coalition government in Maharashtra, with Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar serving as deputy chief ministers. The swearing-in ceremony is scheduled for Thursday evening at Azad Maidan ground in south Mumbai and will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several Union ministers. The Mahayuti coalition won the recent assembly elections by a landslide, securing 230 out of 288 seats.
The incumbent Congress could win only 18 seats, with Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi losing both seats he contested -- Chamkaur Sahib as well as Bhadaur.
Replying to a question on the Enforcement Directorate raids at many places including at the premises of Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi's nephew, Sidhu slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre over the raids and said the ED took action after nearly four years of the registration of the case.
The 48-year-old Mann was elected the AAP Legislature Party leader at a meeting of the party MLAs in Mohali on Friday.
The swearing-in ceremony of the Mann's cabinet will be held at Punjab Raj Bhawan at 11 am, officials said.
The chief minister said certain "leads" have been found which are being pursued aggressively and assured that culprits would soon be arrested. The chief minister has also announced a reward of Rs 50 lakh for anyone providing information on those involved in the blast.
Dismissing the accusation, Singh asked why would the state government stop Kejriwal from holding a press conference when he was allowed to hold a party programme a few days back.
Punjab Bharatiya Janata Party leaders met the governor in Chandigarh on Thursday, demanding the dismissal of the state's home minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and the police chief over the security breach during the prime minister's visit to Punjab.
Tiwari said on Amarinder's remark that when the latter was PCC president, he had himself demonstrated as to how the EVMs can be gerrymandered.
This was Channi's first meeting with Shah after becoming the chief minister of the state.
Mann said he took the decision after learning that the minister was allegedly demanding one percent commission for tenders.
Govind Singh Dotasra, Harish Chaudhary and Raghu Sharma have already offered their resignations in writing to Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday.
The Congress also stepped up the offensive against the government by launching an online campaign in support of the farmers' agitation, with party leader Rahul Gandhi accusing the government of betraying the farmers for benefitting their 'corporate friends'.
The meeting is being held simultaneously with the interaction between the agitating farmer leaders and the government at Vigyan Bhawan, sources said.
The Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government will have a total of 30 ministers, including 18 who had resigned earlier.
Fifteen ministers took the oath in Rajasthan on Sunday in a cabinet expansion that included 12 new faces, fulfilling a key demand of former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot whose rebellion last year shook the state's Congress government.
After forcing some governors to quit, the Narendra Modi government on Friday sacked Lt Governor of Puducherry Virendra Kataria, in the first such action against political appointees of the United Progressive Alliance regime.
Setting aside their bitterness, both within and outside Parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi shook hands at a function to felicitate NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, who turned 75 on Thursday.
The JD-U, may be the BJP's partner for now. But it is a party at all only because of Nitish Kumar. The day Nitish Kumar exits, the JD-U will split into hundreds of pieces. Obviously, Prashant Kishor is setting himself up as the vessel that will collect all the pieces and put them together in some sort of political instrument, explains Aditi Phadnis.
'The protesters took out a march carrying black flags. They burnt Prime Minister Narendra Modi's effigy while raising slogans against the three farm laws'
Several newly elected MLAs including Navjot Singh Sidhu, Manpreet Singh Badal, Brahm Mohindra, Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Rana Gurjit Singh, Pargat Singh, Razia Sultana, O P Soni are in the race for becoming ministers, party sources said.
Party's state unit chiefs of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat were also detained along with the workers during the protests.
With his swearing-in, the five-decade-long practice of retired bureaucrats being appointed to the post has ended.
Farmer leader Joginder Singh Ugrahan said told reporters after the meeting that the unions urged the government to repeal the three laws, but the Centre was unwilling to do so. "We decided to meet again on January 19 at 12 pm," he said.
Apart from the second pandemic upsurge in Haryana which devastated its cities and villages, in most districts panchayats stopped inviting BJP-JJP leaders to social gatherings, while a few announced a boycott.
'The UPA was never soft on Pakistan, terrorists and even China, but Sonia Gandhi's Congress rightly earned a "soft" image on issues of hard national interest, leaving the field open for Modi to take it and wrap it around with his implicit Hindutva,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Cracks were visible in the Opposition unity ahead of Tuesday's meeting convened by Congress to ramp up attack on demonetisation and alleged "personal corruption" of the prime minister, with Left parties and the Janata Dal-United unlikely to attend it.
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