The BJP Friday formally announced that it will contest the upcoming assembly elections in Punjab in alliance with Amarinder Singh's Punjab Lok Congress.
Barring 2004 and 2009 when Navjot Singh Sidhu won the Amritsar seat as a BJP MP and 1998 when Daya Singh Sodhi from BJP was elected as the MP, it has essentially a Congress bastion.
Even as the assembly elections in Punjab are around the corner, Congress MP Preneet Kaur, wife of former chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh, continues to stay away from poll campaigning in Patiala.
The Congress also fielded former Patiala mayor Vishnu Sharma from the Patiala assembly seats against its former leader Amarinder Singh.
Some media reports claimed he may meet some Bharatiya Janata Party leaders in Delhi after which Amarinder Singh's media advisor Raveen Thukral sought to clarify the reason for his visit.
The Congress fielded Channi from two seats -- Chamkaur Sahib in Rupnagar and Bhadaur in Barnala, a move which showed how much the Congress was banking on him. He lost both, and the party received a drubbing from the AAP.
As many as 22 Patiala corporators and Congress leaders joined former Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh's new party Punjab Lok Congress at a party event on Friday ahead of the assembly elections next year.
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.
Tewari shared an invite for the swearing-in of Mann on Twitter, but said he would not be able to make it as Parliament was in session.
The resignation also signals a continuing saga of unaddressed concerns of young leaders, once considered close to former Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
Sources said that Mann is likely to join the Aam Aadmi Party.
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.
Amarinder Singh on Monday held the Gandhis totally responsible for the rout of the Congress in the assembly polls, claiming that the party was "comfortably placed" in Punjab before he was unseated as chief minister.
The former Punjab Congress chief had been upset with the party for serving him a show-cause notice.
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.
'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.
The Charanjit Singh Channi-led government in Punjab on Thursday shunted Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan and appointed Anirudh Tewari in her place.
In a series of interviews, Capt Amarinder Singh said, "Priyanka and Rahul are like my children. This should not have ended like this. I am hurt."
Speaking to the media persons in Delhi on Sunday, the Rajya Sabha member said: "I have declined the offer to be the next Punjab CM. I believe Punjab CM face should be a Sikh."
The three-member panel, set up by Congress president Sonia Gandhi to end factionalism in the party's Punjab unit, submitted its report to her on Thursday and is learnt to have recommended suitable accommodation of former minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, setting up of coordination committee and filling vacant posts in the organisation.
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.
'Change was very much needed for the Congress to win the 2022 assembly elections.'
The Punjab police arrested Jasvir Singh after the incident and booked him for hurting religious sentiments and attempt to murder.
I don't want to hide that some questions are still being resolved, Rawat said.
Former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh on Friday hit out at the Congress for blaming the anti-incumbency of his four-and-half-years tenure for the poor show in assembly polls, saying the party's leadership will never learn.
He said that to concentrate on the upcoming polls in Uttarakhand, it had been on his mind to seek to be relieved of the responsibility of the party's Punjab affairs in-charge.
She praised the chief minister for leading the party to "many victories" and taking Punjab on a "road to progress".
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.
The bodies of Jasdeep Singh, 39, his wife Jasleen Kaur, 27, their eight-month-old daughter Aroohi Dheri and Jasdeep's brother Amandeep Singh, 39, were found in an orchard near Indiana Road and Hutchinson Road on Wednesday evening.
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.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Sunday appointed Navjot Singh Sidhu as the new president of the party's Punjab unit, notwithstanding the opposition from Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.
Singh, who had dropped Sidhu from the Punjab government during his tenure as the state's chief minister, never had smooth relations with the cricketer-turned-politician and was against appointing him as the Punjab unit chief of the Congress.
Congress leaders are now in a "wait and watch" mode over the possible ripple effect of Punjab developments in faction-ridden Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the only two states other than Punjab where the party is in power on its own.
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.
Directly questioning the party's high command's decision on the appointment of Sidhu as the new Punjab Congress chief, Jakhar said that the person who was trying to patch up the rift between Captain Amarinder Singh and Sidhu was forgotten by the Congress party.
Ahead of a likely organisational and government reshuffle in Punjab, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday met poll strategist Prashant Kishor at his residence.
Jakhar, who is not an MLA, is believed to be close the top leadership and is considered a prominent Hindu face of the party.
BJP leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa also slammed those who targeted Arshdeep and called him a 'Khalistani'.
Uttam Ghosh offers his take on the weekend's whirlwind political developments in Punjab.
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.
