Chandigarh: Senior Congress leader and Punjab affairs in-charge Harish Rawat has asked Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh to focus on resolving five key issues that his detractors in the party are condemning him for.
Rawat met Amarinder at his residence here Wednesday amid the ongoing battle for supremacy between the chief minister and Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu. Rawat had met Sidhu Tuesday.
Both Sidhu and Amarinder claim to have the support of a majority of the 80 Congress MLAs and are locked in a bitter tug-of-war to lead the party in the assembly elections early next year.
Rawat has been tasked by the high command to resolve the current round of crisis after at least three dozen MLAs, including four cabinet ministers, met the former Uttarakhand CM in Dehradun on 25 August seeking Amarinder’s removal. The move was said to be orchestrated by Sidhu.
Although Rawat has had several rounds of talks with the two warring leaders and MLAs backing them, Wednesday he met the chief minister, along with the latter’s officers, to discuss issues raised by the Sidhu camp against him.
Apart from Amarinder’s chief principal secretary Suresh Kumar, the state’s advocate general Atul Nanda was in the meeting along with the DGP Dinkar Gupta and ADGP Harpreet Sidhu, who heads the state task force on drugs control.
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Drug control and Bikram Singh Majithia
Amarinder’s detractors contend that he has failed to control the rampant availability of drugs in Punjab and also not taken any action against Akali leader Bikram Singh Majithia for his alleged involvement with the drug mafia.
Drug abuse was one of the major election issues in 2017 and it was alleged that the then Akali-BJP leadership was patronising drug trade. Amarinder had promised to end the curse of drugs within a month of coming to power. He had sworn this with a gutka (a sacred collection of Sikh hymns and Gurbani) in his hand. While the move seems to have helped Amarinder win the elections, nothing has really changed on the ground.
Sources who are privy to what transpired during the meeting add that Rawat also questioned Amarinder on why no action had been taken on a report submitted by the STF to the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Majithia’s alleged role in the drug trade.
“The CM explained that the report had been submitted in a sealed cover to the court and action, if any, had to be ordered by the court. The case had not come up for hearing for over a year and on two occasions when it did come up for hearing this month, judges hearing the matter recused, including the latest hearing on Wednesday,” said an officer who was at the meeting.
“The CM, however, assured that the government will now try to get the court to open the report so that it can be acted upon.”
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Affordable power and PPA agreements
Sidhu and his supporters are also upset that the CM has not fulfilled his promise of providing affordable power. They add that Amarinder had not annulled the power purchase agreements (PPAs) signed during the Akali-BJP rule with private entities, from whom the government is continuing to buy expensive power. They are demanding that the PPAs be annulled by Amarinder through a legislation.
Rawat was told that annulment of the PPAs was not legally possible because it was an agreement between the Punjab government, the Centre and a private party and any move in the assembly or otherwise would invite litigation.
“The CM said that the matter can be examined again legally. Rawat, however, told the CM that the party should fulfill its promise of affordable power by renegotiating the agreements and passing on the benefits of the renegotiation to consumers,” the officer added.
Sacrilege incidents and action against Badals
Several MLAs have also turned against Amarinder because they believe that he has not been able to ensure justice for Sikhs in the sacrilege cases.
Multiple incidents of sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib, considered to be a living guru by the Sikhs, took place in 2015 and the then ruling Akali Dal-BJP government failed to nab the culprits. To make matters worse, during widespread protests against the government, two youths were killed in police firing.
The sacrilege and police firing incidents are believed to have led to the Akalis’ losing power to the Congress. Amarinder politically cashed in on the seething anger against then chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and his son and deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal and promised to nab not just those responsible for the sacrilege but also make the Badals pay for ordering the police firing on protesters.
One of the first things that Amarinder did after he came to power was to set up a commission under a retired judge to inquire into the incidents.
“The commission reported against the Badals in 2018 and yet for two years, no arrests were made. In June this year, the high court set aside the investigation carried out by the Punjab police special investigation team (SIT) into the police firing incidents. The court even discredited the SIT and disbanded it. I have no doubt that the Punjab Police’s lackadaisical attitude led to the Badals getting away and then in the court, our case was not well defended,” Cabinet Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa told The Print Wednesday. Randhawa is leading a group of almost three dozen MLAs against the CM.
“Rawat was told by the CM that a new SIT had subsequently been constituted to investigate the police firing incidents and investigations into the sacrilege incidents is almost complete,” the officer quoted above said. “The government will definitely show results before elections are announced.”
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Farm laws and farmers’ agitation
Rawat also discussed the possibility of the chief minister bringing in legislation in the Punjab assembly to undo the impact of the three central farm laws. He reminded the CM of his path-breaking move of terminating the multipartite water sharing agreements in 2004 during his first tenure as chief minister.
The ongoing farmer’s agitation against the three central farm laws brought in by the Narendra Modi government is expected to have a major impact on the Punjab elections. The farmers are demanding the revocation of the three laws.
“It was explained to Rawat that the termination of the water treaties in 2004 was later found illegal by the Supreme Court. But the question of what the state government can do about the farm laws was left open and a final decision is yet to be taken,” the officer said.
Transport permits to the Badals
Another point of contention has been that Amarinder has “allowed” private buses owned by the Badals to run in the state on populous route permits, which the Badals allegedly procured for themselves when they were in power.
This, the chief minister’s detractors say, has led to a virtual monopoly for Orbit Aviation, the transport company run by the Badals.
In 2018, the government had started the process of cancelling the route permits to the Badals but the move led to protracted litigation. Last month, however, the decks were cleared and almost 400 buses run by the Badals are expected to go off road.
(Edited by Arun Prashanth)
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