‘Will accept what party chief decides’: Amarinder after meeting Sonia Gandhi amid Punjab Congress crisis

This was Sonia's first meeting with the embattled Chief Minister since she had set up a three-member panel headed by Mallikarjun Kharge to look into the problems in the state unit, triggered by a wave of discontent among party MLAs and senior leaders. 

Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh met Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi at her residence in New Delhi in a bid to resolve the crisis that has gripped the state Congress unit months before key Assembly elections.

Following his meeting, Captain Amarinder told reporters: “Whatever the Congress President decides on Punjab, we will accept it.”

This was Sonia’s first meeting with the embattled Chief Minister since she had set up a three-member panel headed by Mallikarjun Kharge to look into the problems in the state unit, triggered by a wave of discontent among party MLAs and senior leaders.

Last week, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi and AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi had met Navjot Singh Sidhu, one of Amarinder’s main detractors, and are said to have offered him a prominent role in the party to placate him.

As per reports, Priyanka had met Sonia Gandhi before her meeting with CM Amarinder earlier in the day.

The lingering fallout of the 2015 desecration incident at Bargari is the biggest stumbling block the party is facing now. In April, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had quashed the Special Investigation Team set up to probe the desecration case. Within days, CM Amarinder set up a new SIT. But that did little to assuage the anger on the streets. Soon enough, the cracks within Amarinder’s team split wide open.

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