Former Punjab CM has sent his resignation to Congress President Sonia Gandhi.
Chandigarh: Former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Tuesday resigned from the Congress. He also announced the name of his new political party.
Singh shared the resignation letter in a tweet which he has sent to Congress President Sonia Gandhi. He said he has listed his reasons for resigning to Gandhi.
“‘Punjab Lok Congress’ is the name of the new party. The registration is pending for approval of the Election Commission of India. The party’s symbol will be approved later,” he said.
Hitting out at the Congress, Singh said, “A party that today accuses me of raising farmers’ issues with the NDA/BJP governments at the Centre, didn’t think twice before going to bed with Shiv Sena. It suits him.”
Explaining this, he said, “Who is communal and therefore who is secular, it is for the people to do justice. They are not fools.”
Singh also accused the Congress president of appointing Navjot Singh Sidhu as the president of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC). He said that he had told Sonia Gandhi that Sidhu is a man of unstable mind and you will regret this decision one day and by then it will be too late.
“I am sure you (Sonia Gandhi) must have regretted this (appointment of Sidhu as PPCC),” he said.
Elaborating further on Sidhu’s appointment, Singh said, “When you decided to appoint a person who was with BJP for 14 years as PPCC president, I myself wondered where Congress has come. However, his appointment was only a continuation that Nana Patole from the BJP and Revnath Reddy from the RSS were earlier appointed as the presidents of Maharashtra and Telangana respectively.
He also said, “The most heinous act was a conspiracy against me at the behest of you and your children by calling a CLP (Congress Legislature Party) meeting on my head in the middle of the night and that too through Twitter.”
Singh said it was his “privilege” as CLP leader to convene a meeting if the AICC so desired.
He said that Sonia Gandhi called him the next morning at 10:15 and he was asked to resign, which he did “without blinking an eye”.
Singh said the “crude” manner in which the entire “operation” was carried out by the “undertakers” of the AICC had left a “very bad taste” in his mouth.
“I realized immediately that the intention was small and offended this self-respecting soldier… You probably thought that if this third world emergency circus that happened in June 1975 had not been implemented, I would have taken the legislators to a resort. Would have gone,” he said.
The former Punjab CM said he was told by Congress leader Randeep Surjewala that 76 out of 77 MLAs opposed Singh. “I don’t blame you because these were fabricated numbers submitted by people who were part of the plot.”
In his resignation letter, Singh told Sonia Gandhi that she had known him for the better part of his 52 years in public life, yet “never understood” him and his character.
Amarinder said, “You thought I was moving for years and should be kept in the pasture. I am neither tired nor retired. I think I have more to give and contribute to my beloved Punjab. There’s a lot to offer. Singh wrote.
The former Punjab Chief Minister got emotional at the end of his resignation letter and said, “I am really saddened by your conduct and I still love your children as much as I love my children, their father. Knowing, ever since we were in school together since 1954, which is now 67 years.”
He also hoped that no other senior Congress figure would be subjected to the “humiliation” that he had faced.
First published:November 2, 2021, 5:33 pm
