The Congress high command’s efforts to bring the rival camps in Punjab together have made little headway, with the Channi camp taking charge of the Rakhar Punia conference at Baba Bakala on Friday while state Congress chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring and his supporters stayed away, once again laying bare the deep divisions in the party.
The Friday conference was the second major political programme in less than a fortnight where the faction opposed to Warring mounted a show without the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president. He also questioned the PPCC president’s absence from the rally, saying every party worker wanted to see a united leadership. Warring, however, played down the significance of his absence from the Baba Bakala conference.
The latest show of differences comes ahead of senior party leader Rahul Gandhi’s proposed visit to the state next month to strengthen Congress’ organisational and political outreach ahead of the 2027 assembly polls. It followed the Issru rally on August 15, where too leaders opposed to Warring held a programme without the state party president. On August 26, when Warring led a protest against rising sugar prices in Chandigarh, Channi skipped the programme. Since the Congress high command retained Warring as state unit head on July 1 while giving former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi the campaign committee’s reins, several senior leaders associated with the latter have stayed away from events organised under Warring’s leadership.
Randhawa said Rakhar Punia was traditionally one of the biggest political gatherings for each party ahead of elections and questioned why some “compromised” leaders were opposed to unity. Asked about not attending the programme, he said it was not necessary for all senior leaders to be present at every event and pointed out that several other senior leaders had also stayed away. On Randhawa’s references to “compromised leaders” and “sleeper cells”, Warring said he would meet the Gurdaspur MP and ask him whom he was referring to, including whether he meant “leaders who were meeting Union home minister Amit Shah and Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann”. “(Ravneet Singh) Bittu used to meet Union home minister Amit Shah and later, he left (the Congress and joined the BJP),” he said.
