Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu
The Congress’ Punjab chief Navjot Singh Sidhu resigned from his post on Wednesday following the party’s humiliating defeat in five states in the recently held assembly elections.
His decision comes a day after Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi sacked the party’s chiefs in the five states where it lost.
Sharing a copy of his resignation letter on Twitter, Sidhu wrote, “As desired by the Congress President I have sent my resignation.”
Explaining the party’s decision to seek the resignations, Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala had tweeted yesterday that it was done to “facilitate the reorganization” of the state Congress units.
He said, “Congress President, Smt. Sonia Gandhi has asked the PCC Presidents of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa & Manipur to put in their resignations in order to facilitate reorganisation of PCC's.”
Notably, Sidhu received flak for praising the people of Punjab for making an excellent decision to bring the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in power in his first media interaction following the party’s defeat.
Asked how he could say that being the Congress president, he said that the people had chosen change and they are never wrong. He said, “The voice of the people is the voice of God. We should understand with humility and bow to it.”
Congress suffered a humiliation at the hands of AAP in the state having initially come off as a major contender. AAP posted a massive victory by winning 92 seats out of the 117. Congress Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi also lost both the seats he contested from. Sidhu himself lost the Amritsar East seat to AAP’s Jeevanjyot Kaur by a margin of over 6,000 votes.
Meannwhile, the Congress shifted the blame of its loss to the party’s former chief minister in the statem Capt. Amarinder Singh.
In reply, Capt. Singh tweeted, “The @INCIndia leadership will never learn! Who is responsible for the humiliating defeat of Congress in UP? What about Manipur, Goa, Uttrakhand? The answer is written in BOLD LETTERS on the wall but as always I presume they will avoid reading it.”
Senior party leader Sunil Jakhar on Monday blamed the Congress’ loss in Punjab on its choice of chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi. He said that there was nothing which inspired confidence.
Apart from Punjab, the Congress was comprehensively defeated in the other four states including Manipur, Goa, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged victorious.
