CHANDIGARH, May 20: The demand for PPCC President Partap Bajwa’s resignation seems to be growing stronger with several more Senior Congress leaders and MLAs joining Kewal Singh Dhillon, PPCC Vice President today again and questioning the defence being given by the Punjab Congress President Partap Singh Bajwa over the catastrophic poll debacle in Punjab under his leadership. They asked him whether he would have used similar arguments if the party had fared better in the polls.
The leaders included, Kewal Singh Dhillon, Rana Sodhi, Dr Raj Kumar Verka, OP Soni, Navtej Cheema, Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Sukhjinder Randhawa, Gurcharan Singh Boparai, Joginder Singh Panjraian, Bharat Bhushan Ashu, Harchand Kaur, Mohammad Sadiq, Gur Iqbal Kaur, Hardayal Kambhoj, Rana Gurjit Singh, Jagmohan Kang, Ramanjit Singh Sikki, Sukh Sarkaria, Amrik Singh Dhillon, Ajaib Singh Bhatti, Sunder Sham Arora, Sangat Sing Gilzian, Gurkirat Kotli, Rajnish Babbi (all MLAs), district president, Jagbir Brar, Gurjit Aujla, Rana KP Singh, Love Kumar Goldy, Tarsem DC, Ranjeet Singh Chhajalwadi, Ch Jagjit, Raman Bhalla, Makhan Singh, Sher Singh Gaggowal, Surjit Singh Dhiman, Ajaib Singh Rataul, Sunil Datti, Kaka Lohgarh, Dr Dharamvir Agnihotri, Gupreet Kangar, Jugal Kishore, Kikki Dhillon, Avtar Henry, said, Bajwa must own the moral responsibility and follow into the footsteps of the Congress president Ms Sonia Gandhi and the Vice President Mr Rahul Gandhi, who took responsibility and offered to quit. They said, similarly Capt Amarinder Singh offered to resign in 2012.
They told Mr Bajwa that it was the tradition that the leader takes the responsibility and offers to quit. The party leaders pointed out, the Congress vote share had come down to 32 per cent against 41 per cent in 2012 besides, the Congress having the maximum number of MPs earlier has been reduced to the third spot behind AAP and the lead in the assembly segments has come down from 46 to 29. Besides, they asked him that how could he blame others when he had lost from his family borough of Qadian which was represented by his wife Charanjeet Kaur Bajwa.
The Congress leaders also referred to Bajwa seeking votes as a prospective Chief Minister of Punjab. Despite that, they added, he was rejected by people even in all the nine assembly segments of Gurdaspur.
They asserted that while AAP was wiped out from all over India, thanks to Mr Bajwa’s poor leadership it flourished in Punjab as he failed to capitalise on the strong anti-incumbency sentiment prevailing against the ruling Akali-BJP government in the state.