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.
'The Congress is trying to cover up their anti-incumbency by highlighting the Dalit CM factor.'
'Let the Congress high command decide who will replace Captain Amarinder because they are far wiser than I am.'
'He is worried about how best the Punjab crisis can be resolved.'
The Supreme Court on Friday quashed the Punjab and Haryana high court order which had restrained five Haryana Janhit Congress MLAs from joining the ruling Congress till the assembly speaker decides on their disqualification.
Amid cross-voting, BJP candidate Harsh Mahajan on Tuesday won the lone Rajya Sabha seat from Himachal Pradesh, defeating ruling Congress' Abhishek Manu Singhvi, officials said.
The Punjab cabinet has approved the summoning of a special session of the assembly on September 22 to bring a confidence motion.
Sidhu and Amarinder Singh has been at loggerheads for the past some time, with the Amritsar (East) MLA recently attacking the CM over the desecration cases.
Ruling Shiromani Akali Dal and Congress won one seat each in the bypolls to Patiala (urban) and Talwandi Sabo Assembly seats on Monday but the Aam Aadmi Party finished a poor third.
'Everything else is a sham.'
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.
The defeat in the elections has put a question mark on the five-time MP and former Union minister's political future.
Agriculture Minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal says she will return to Punjab only when Chief Minister Amarinder Singh is removed.
Navjot Singh Sidhu quit as the Punjab PCC chief, triggering other resignations and plunging the party into a fresh crisis just months ahead of the assembly elections.
Navjot Singh Sidhu was not part of the Channi-led 'jatha' (group) which went to pay obeisance at the gurdwara.
Yogendra Yadav, a founding member of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), believes the party's defeat in the Delhi Assembly polls is a setback for the entire opposition and raises questions about its future. He attributed the loss to factors like the liquor scam, the 'Sheesh Mahal' row, and the constant fights between the Delhi LG and the AAP government.
The Punjab assembly on Monday "unanimously" passed the confidence motion moved by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on September 27, even as Congress members staged a walkout.
"Special circumstances" exist in Punjab, Wasnik said and added that in view of these, the AAP and the Congress have decided to fight the Lok Sabha polls separately in the state.
A few former MLAs, considered to be his loyalists and a few supporters, turned up at Sidhu's residence in Patiala Friday morning to extend moral support to him.
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.
Without naming anyone, Mann, who is an MP from Sangrur, claimed that a senior BJP leader contacted him four days ago and asked him, "What would you take to join the BJP?"
Congress leader and former chief minister Amarinder Singh was on Wednesday expelled from the Punjab assembly after being indicted by a House committee in a graft case and his seat declared vacant. A resolution to his effect was moved by ruling Shiromani Akali Dal MLA Harish Rai Dhanda and passed in the assembly amid protests by slogan-shouting Congress members who boycotted the proceedings.
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.
The BJP, which rules the Centre, is in power in Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and is all set to get Madhya Pradesh back and snatch Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh from the Congress after today's vote count.
Singh (80) had floated the Punjab Lok Congress last year after quitting the Congress.
The Congress, however, said state chiefs are free to take their decisions within the party's norms and constitution.
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.
The 79-year-old widely respected and popular leader steered the Congress in 2017 to a landslide victory in the 117-member assembly to occupy the chief minister's post for the second time.
The counting of votes for the bypolls to 46 assembly seats in 13 states and in the Lok Sabha segments of Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala, a crucial electoral exercise since the parliamentary polls in April-May, will begin at 8 am on Saturday.
The Haryana assembly on Tuesday passed a resolution seeking the completion of the SYL canal and the transfer of Hindi-speaking areas from Punjab, while denouncing the neighbouring state for staking its claim over Chandigarh.
In line with exit poll predictions, the Bharatiya Janata Party has taken an early lead in Uttar Pradesh, after one hour of counting.
Top state leaders--Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, Congress' Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar and Janata Dal-Secular leader HD Kumaraswamy are contesting from different seats.
The AAP suffered a humiliating defeat in Haryana with most of its candidates set to lose their security deposit.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
Khera told reporters in Hyderabad that the views of the newly-elected MLAs have been elicited and the central leadership is seized of the matter.
The widening differences between Punjab Congress leaders -- Captain Amarinder Singh and Navjot Singh Sidhu intensified with their wives joining them in the conflict.
For the last several weeks, both Channi and Sidhu have, directly or indirectly, made a case to be declared as the party's nominee for the top post.
The swearing-in ceremony of the Mann's cabinet will be held at Punjab Raj Bhawan at 11 am, officials said.
Several Punjab Congress leaders, including Navjot Singh Sidhu, were on Thursday prevented from heading to Lakhimpur Kheri and were detained at a police station in Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh.
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.
