Chandigarh : Former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh on Tuesday resigned from the Congress, accusing party president Sonia Gandhi and Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra of hatching a midnight conspiracy to oust him.
The 79-year-old leader timed his bitter resignation letter with an announcement on the name of his new party. The Punjab Lok Congress will be formally launched after the Election Commission registers it and allots a poll symbol. Amarinder Singh’s seven-page letter to Sonia Gandhi, made public on Twitter, lashed out at Navjot Singh Sidhu, the new Punjab Congress president whom he described as an acolyte of the Pakistani deep state , and “dubious individual” Harish Rawat, the former AICC in-charge for the state. Singh also felt that the government led by Charanjit Singh Channi, his replacement as CM, was too inexperienced for the job of handling a border state.The letter also carried a veiled threat to reveal the names of those in the Channi government who were allegedly involved in illegal sand-mining trade.
The former CM claimed he had inputs on this from intelligence agencies, but he didn’t act because he did not want to embarrass the party. I actually felt deeply hurt by your conduct and that of your children who I still deeply love as much as my own children, having known their father, since we were in school together since 1954, which is for 67 years now, he wrote on the party’s action.
He resigned as the Punjab chief minister in September amid a bitter power tussle with Sidhu, the ex-cricketer favoured over him by the party high command. Days later, he had made clear that he will quit the Congress and float his own party, not ruling out a tie-up with the BJP ahead of next year’s assembly
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