Was at fault for protecting Amarinder Singh, admits Sonia Gandhi at CWC meet
India Today
A Congress leader at the CWC meet opined that if the party high command wanted to remove Amarinder Singh, they should have done so sooner. To this, Sonia Gandhi admitted to shielding Amarinder Singh despite complaints against him.
After a disastrous showing in the recently concluded Assembly polls in five states, the Congress held a key meeting of its Working Committee on Sunday, which resolved to perform some course correction while remaining under the leadership of interim president Sonia Gandhi.
At the meeting, attended by the Congress’s top brass, reports dissecting the reasons for the party’s defeat were presented. In one such submission, Punjab in-charge Harish Chaudhary listed infighting and the late removal of Captain Amarinder Singh as the main reasons for the party's failure to retain the state.
One Congress leader at the CWC meet opined that if the party high command wanted to remove Amarinder Singh, they should have done so sooner, as by that time anti-incumbency had set in.
In response, Sonia Gandhi said she was the one at fault for the misstep as she always shielded “Captain Sahab” despite complaints against him.
READ | Why Rahul, Priyanka are disowning Amarinder Singh and his Congress govt too
In September 2021, months before the polls, the Congress had forced the resignation of Amarinder Singh as Punjab chief minister, later replacing him with Charanjit Singh Channi. A miffed Amarinder Singh quit the Congress in November and went on to float his own party.
The Congress was routed in the Punjab polls with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) clinching 92 seats in the 117-member assembly, leaving it with only 18 seats. The AAP sweep decimated other traditional players like the BJP and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).
