The Congress is likely to declare its chief ministerial face for Punjab on February 6 when former party chief Rahul Gandhi will visit the poll-bound state, party sources said.
The top Congress leadership has not accepted Navjot Singh Sidhu's resignation and adopting a wait and watch policy.
Nearly five years ago when he joined the Congress, ex-cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu had said he is a 'born Congressman' now coming back to his roots.
President Droupadi Murmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, several central ministers and chief ministers and leaders cutting across party lines condoled the demise of former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal on Tuesday and hailed his immense contributions to the state as well as the country.
"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.
The complainant, who claims to be a Bharatiya Janata Party worker, had alleged that Gandhi's "commander-in-thief" remark in the context of the Rafale fighter jet deal amounted to defamation.
Singh's meeting with Shah on Wednesday had added another dimension in politics in Punjab where no party is being seen as a clear favourite in the polls, expected to be held early next year.
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.
Mann made the claim while addressing a gathering after laying foundation stones for setting up tehsil complexes at Dirba and Cheema in Sangrur.
Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu has been at loggerheads with the chief minister, attacking him on issues like the alleged delay in the completion of a probe into the 2015 desecration of Sikh texts and the subsequent police firing on protesters.
Gandhi is seeking responses from Congress leaders and workers through the party's Shakti app, sources said. The opinion of common people on the issue will also be sought in a day or two.
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.
'Everything else is a sham.'
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.
On Saturday, Amarinder Singh had accepted Sidhu's "one-line" resignation and forwarded it to Punjab Governor V P Singh Badnore who conveyed his acceptance of the same.
Expressing concerns over another round of crisis in the Punjab unit of Congress, Anandpur Sahib MP Manish Tewari said that he is 'extremely distressed' after Navjot Singh Sidhu's resignation as party's state unit chief and claimed that the only people who are happy with what is going on in the border state is the 'deep state of Pakistan.'
Unemployment, delivery of justice in desecration cases, illegal sand mining and drug menace are likely to be key issues in the Punjab assembly elections.
'It's not that the Opposition has to search for common ground.' 'The government is handing the common ground to the Opposition.'
Pardeep Singh was shot in his dairy shop at around 7 am in Kotkapura in Faridkot, the police said, adding that his security man and another person sustained bullet injuries in the incident.
SAD dubbed "Kejriwal's meeting" as "unconstitutional and unacceptable".
'Rahul Gandhi is on a 3,500 km-long march. For me, kilometers do not matter'
'People in Punjab put their opinion very strongly there and it looks like they will fight. But, there is nothing like that, and they find solutions to their problems'
Donning a flowing white chola' and a navy blue turban and often escorted by armed supporters, radical preacher and Khalistan sympathiser Amritpal Singh has been quite active in Punjab for some time.
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.
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.
Khattar held his Punjab counterpart Amarinder Singh responsible for the thousands of farmers marching to Delhi.
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 cricketer-turned-politician thanked the party leadership for appointing him head of the Punjab unit and said he would work with every 'member of the Cong family' to fulfil the 'Jittega Punjab' mission and strengthen the party's organisation in the state.
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".
Sidhu Moosewala -- who seems to have a huge following, given the fact that a memorial billboard was put up outside a garden in Mumbai's Lokhandwala Complex area on Monday -- had asked his bodyguards to stay home and decided to drive the jeep himself.
"There is a clear hand of the Punjab government in it. Here in Haryana, former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and other Congress leaders besides some Left leaders are instigating farmers to take law in their hands," Haryana chief minister M L Khattar said
Glimpses from the campaign trail on Tuesday, February 8, 2022.
Dominic Xavier offers his take on what looks like the end of the Captain era in Punjab politics -- even if he joins another political party.
The incident took place outside a temple in the city where Suri and some other leaders of the party were holding a protest, they said.
Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala claimed that 78 party legislators had sought Singh's ouster in a letter to the central leadership and it was not party president Sonia Gandhi who made him quit.
Congress leader Sukhjinder Randhawa and Brahm Mohindra will be two deputies to Punjab's Chief Minister-designate Charanjit Singh Channi, said party leader Pawan Kumar Bansal.
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.
Prominent among these include former sports minister and sitting MLA Gurmit Singh Sodhi, MLA Fatehjang Singh Bajwa and former minister Anil Joshi.
Filing nomination from the Amritsar East seat, Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu on Saturday dared his bte noir Amarinder Singh to leave Patiala and take on him.
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