The Indian Express reports that the Punjab CM had not consulted either the PM or Congress chief Sonia Gandhi before terminating all agreements relating to sharing of waters of the Ravi and Beas rivers with Haryana and Rajasthan.
Often credited with his party's victory in the 2012 assembly polls, now 59, he became the youngest chief of the Shiromani Akali Dal, when he was elevated to the post in 2008.
Colourful lights illuminated buildings and earthen lamps dotted houses as people across the country celebrated Diwali with pomp on Monday after two years of muted festivities due to the pandemic.
The clash took place outside the Kali Mata temple when members of an outfit that calls itself "Shiv Sena (Bal Thackeray)" began a Khalistan Murdabad march.
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.
Shiromani Akali Dal Chief Parkash Singh Badal will take oath as the chief minister of Punjab on Friday.
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.
Sounding an alert in the state, Parkash Singh Badal said it was time that the Centre dealt with terrorism with an iron hand.
The Congress may stand a better chance in the assembly polls if it followed the 'Himachal model', suggests N Sathiya Moorthy.
However, the farmer bodies said they will again block the rail tracks if the government failed to resolve their issues.
Mansa civil surgeon Dr Ranjeet Rai told reporters that Moosewala was brought dead at the civil hospital.
Chief Minister of the Punjab province in Pakistan and the Pakistan prime minister's brother, Shahbaz Sharif, tells Nayanima Basu that strategic issues go hand in hand with trade normalisation. Sharif believes that cordial relations are in the interest of the people of both India and Pakistan and issues such as Kashmir will also be resolved soon.
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Thursday announced that his government will launch an anti-corruption helpline number on March 23 that will allow people to upload videos of corrupt officials asking for a bribe or indulging in other malpractices.
Eighty five-year-old Shiromani Alkali Dal leader Parkash Singh Badal on Wednesday created two records in one go by becoming the chief minister of Punjab for the fifth time and the first in the reorganised state's history to return to power for the second successive tenure heading the SAD-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance ministry.
Akali veteran Parkash Singh Badal will be sworn in as Punjab Chief Minister on March 14 for a record fifth time with the SAD-BJP combine on Friday jointly electing the 85-year-old leader to head the state for a second consecutive term.
The issue of "not inviting" Punjab government to the foundation stone laying event of a cancer hospital in Sangrur snowballed into a controversy with Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal accusing the Centre of "grave and avoidable political impropriety involved in keeping Punjab in the dark".
The remarks came after the Channi government on Tuesday accepted the resignation of advocate general APS Deol, yielding to the pressure mounted by Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu for replacing the state's AG.
Terming the attack horrendous and barbaric, the CM said soldiers at the front should be "clearly told that if they kill one of ours, you kill three of theirs".
The ED on Wednesday said it has seized cash amounting to over Rs 10 crore, including about Rs 8 crore from a relative of Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, during raids conducted in connection with an anti-money laundering investigation against illegal sand-mining operations in the poll-bound state.
While it made sense for Capt Amarinder Singh to support the Gandhis since none of the 23 'rebels' had any mass base, the truce was important for his ambition to lead the party in the February 2022 state elections. Archis Mohan reports.
Aam Aadmi Party's chief ministerial candidate Bhagwant Mann too questioned separately Gandhi's description of Channi as belonging to 'gareeb ghar', asking 'from which angle, is he poor'.
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.
Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi on Tuesday allocated portfolios to the new ministers, keeping 14 departments with himself and giving home affairs to deputy chief minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and health to other deputy O P Soni.
Governor Banwarilal Purohit administered the oath of office and secrecy to the 10 ministers at Punjab Bhawan in Chandigarh.
Unemployment, delivery of justice in desecration cases, illegal sand mining and drug menace are likely to be key issues in the Punjab assembly elections.
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.
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.'
"A hundred years ago, Britishers had called Bhagat Singh a terrorist and 100 years later, history is repeating when all these parties want to prove Bhagat Singh's follower (Kejriwal) as a terrorist, but people know the reality," he said.
Aam Aadmi Party calls Bhagwant Mann its people's choice for CM candidate in Punjab. Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com traces what makes Mann so indispensable for his party.
He had along with three other ministers rebelled against Amarinder Singh while choosing to side with the camp of state Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu.
The BJP IT cell has held meetings right down to booth levels and these volunteers have been working for the past six months already.
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.
In his resignation letter to Sonia Gandhi he said that despite knowing him "for the better part of his 52 years in public life" and "that too at a deeply personal level", she never "understood" him or his "character".
"We had asked them (PMO) to discontinue the visit due to bad weather conditions and protests. We had no information of his (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) sudden route change. There was no security lapse during the PM visit," Channi said at a press conference.
"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
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.
With Charanjit Channi's selection as Punjab CM, the Congress has got its opponents thinking seriously about their next move, notes Sanjeev Nayyar.
Given the worsening security scenario in Kashmir, we cannot afford to have a restive Punjab with its peasantry up in arms against the central government, argues Virendra Kapoor.
Senior party leader P Chidambaram, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut expressed support to Priyanka, who has alleged that no notice or first information report (FIR) has been given to her even after her 38-hour detention and was not allowed to meet her legal counsel.
Punjab's Deputy Chief Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa has said a probe would be carried out to ascertain whether Aroosa Alam, a Pakistani journalist who has been visiting former chief minister Amarinder Singh for several years, has links with the ISI.
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