Former Congress MLA from Barnala, Kewal Dhillon, and former Shiormani Akali Dal MLAs Sarup Chand Singla and Mohinder Kaur Josh also joined the BJP.
There is no threat to the Amarinder Singh-led government in Punjab and the party's victory prospects for the upcoming assembly elections, Rawat said.
The panel, chaired by Mallikarjun Kharge, has been tasked with addressing differences between Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and former minister Navjot Singh Sidhu.
Aam Aadmi Party MLA Harmeet Singh Pathanmajra on Tuesday allegedly escaped the police out to arrest him in a rape case
'Punjab chief minister @capt_amarinder has decided to go into 7-day self quarantine, as per government protocol and the advise of his doctors, after two MLAs who met him in the Vidhan Sabha tested positive for #COVID19,' tweeted Raveen Thukral, the media advisor to the chief minister.
Opposition leaders in Punjab have claimed that the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) defeat in the Delhi Assembly polls signals the beginning of its downfall in the state as well. They cited the party's inability to deliver on promises and allegations of corruption as reasons for the setback in Delhi and predicted a similar fate for the AAP in Punjab, where it is currently in power.
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.
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.
The ruling Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab on Wednesday filed a complaint with the state director general of police, seeking a thorough probe into allegations of an attempt by the Bharatiya Janata Party to topple its government.
The Congress on Monday appointed the party's Punjab unit chief Navjot Sidhu as chairman of the state election committee.
Ahead of their planned protest in Chandigarh on March 5, several Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) leaders were detained in early morning raids at their residences on Tuesday and Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann denounced the agitating farmer unions, saying they have turned Punjab into a 'state of dharnas' and caused huge losses to it.
"Congress state in-charge Harish Rawat is my good friend but who gave him the right to take such a big decision about Punjab at his level? What is the meaning of Captain's leadership now after the Kharge committee's decision to contest elections under Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi?" Congress MLA Pargat Singh said.
The Punjab BJP dubbed the allegations as "baseless" and "bundle of lies" and said AAP is trying to divert attention of people from its "failures".
Without naming any party, Sidhu made the remark ahead of the announcement of the Congress' chief ministerial face by the party's former president Rahul Gandhi during his visit to Ludhiana for the February 20 Punjab assembly polls.
Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit on Wednesday thwarted the Aam Aadmi Party government's plan to summon a special assembly session to bring in a confidence motion.
Three of the 23 MLAs are cabinet ministers. Another minister who had tested positive earlier has recovered. The chief minister gave the number during a video conference with Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who had held a virtual meeting with CMs of opposition-ruled states to discuss a range of issues faced by them.
Amid speculation about a possible change of guard in the Congress-ruled Chhattisgarh, chief minister Bhupesh Baghel on Saturday asserted that his state can never become Punjab, and said the two states bear only one similarity -- that of having numbers in their names.
The committee has given its recommendations to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who will take necessary action, the sources pointed out.
Amid the ongoing crisis within the Congress in Punjab, its national spokesperson Supriya Shrinate on Friday expressed the hope that its leaders "talk more in private and less in public."
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 15 assembly seats spread across Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala and Uttarakhand. The bypolls, however, will not have any direct impact on the respective legislative assemblies. The results will be declared on November 23. In Uttar Pradesh, polling will be held in Katehari, Karhal, Meerapur, Ghaziabad, Majhawan, Sisamau, Khair, Phulpur and Kundarki. Ninety candidates are in the fray in these seats with the maximum of 14 in Ghaziabad. This will be the first electoral test of the INDIA bloc as well as the NDA in the politically-crucial state after the Lok Sabha elections. In Punjab, bypolls will be held in four assembly seats - Gidderbaha, Dera Baba Nanak, Chabbewal (SC) and Barnala. The bypolls were necessitated after MLAs representing them were elected to the Lok Sabha. Polling will also be held for the Palakkad seat in Kerala and Kedarnath in Uttarakhand.
Several legislators in states on Monday said they have cross-voted in favour of National Democratic Alliance nominee Droupadi Murmu by not following their respective party lines in the presidential election.
The BJP stood fourth in (the 2022) Punjab (assembly elections) after AAP, Shriomani Akali Dal and Congress. The question is why did Rinku join the BJP. His tenure as Lok Sabha MP has also ended. The BJP will also come fourth in the Jalandhar Lok Sabha polls
The meeting comes ahead of the party's Punjab unit revamp and amid reports that Sidhu may get a key role in the organisation.
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.
Kishor had handled the Congress poll campaign in the 2017 Punjab assembly elections. The Congress in 2017 had stormed to power by bagging 77 seats in the 117-member assembly.
The development has come amid a power tussle that polarised the ruling party in the state headed for elections in just about four months.
A video purportedly of a meeting of the Congress MLAs loyal to Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has surfaced.
'Punjab requires a CM who has solutions to Punjab's challenges, capacity to take tough decisions. Punjab needs serious people whose politics is not Social Engineering, Entertainment, Freebies and not regime favourites rejected by people in successive elections,' Tewari said on Twitter.
In the last five years, 480 candidates with declared cases related to hate speech have contested elections to state assemblies, the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, the ADR said.
'But unlike Punjab, the rebels have an alternative -- the BJP'
Sunil Jakhar was among the front runners for the chief ministerial post after the exit of Amarinder Singh. But the party preferred Charanjit Singh Channi, who became the first chief minister of Punjab from the Scheduled Caste community.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has fielded two Congress turncoats and its former Union minister Vijay Sampla for next month's Punjab assembly polls as it released its second list of 27 candidates on Thursday.
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.
'One needs to understand what kind of means the BJP use to bring other party leaders in their party.' 'They are unscrupulous politicians and money plays an important role.'
Moderate turnout was recorded in the first four hours of polling across five assembly constituencies across Punjab, West Bengal, Gujarat and Kerala where bypolls are underway on Thursday.
'The 10% increase in women voters was a determined bloc of voters.' 'They were willing to try this third party, specially because it seemed it had done something in Delhi.'
The Aam Aadmi Party MLAs spent the night in the state legislative assembly building demanding copies of the Bill which the state's Congress government is now expected to introduce on Tuesday.
Seven Congress legislators and three Aam Aadmi Party MLAs who recently switched over to the ruling party also said Navjot Singh Sidhu was a celebrity and was no doubt an asset to the party but condemning and criticising his own party and government in public has only created a "rift in the cadres and weakened it".
Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and state Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu, who have not been on the same page over certain appointments, Tuesday said they will work with each other and fight the upcoming polls together, according to party MLAs.
The additional director general of police (security), however, said in an order on Friday that the security personnel were 'being withdrawn on a purely temporary basis in connection with an emergent law and order duty'.
