Gandhis totally responsible for Congress' rout- Amrinder Singh

Former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh on Monday held the Gandhis totally responsible for the rout of the Congress in the assembly polls, claiming that the party was “comfortably placed” in Punjab before he was unseated as Chief Minister. In a statement a day after the Congress Working Committee (CWC) took stock of the drubbing received by the party in five states, Singh took digs at the “pompous” state Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu and the “corrupt” Charanjit Singh Channi, who replaced him as Chief Minister.

After his ouster as Chief Minister last year, Amarinder Singh left the Congress and floated his own Punjab Lok Congress. He slammed the CWC for trying to put the blame for the Congress defeat in Punjab on him instead of “gracefully admitting” their “own blunders”. “The Congress has not only lost in Punjab but also in UP, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur and the Gandhis are entirely to blame for the party's shameful defeat,” he said.People across the country had lost faith in the leadership of the Gandhis,” he said, referring to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

“The party had dug its own grave in the border state the day they decided to back an unstable and pompous person like Navjot Sidhu, and naming a corrupt man like Charanjit Singh Channi as chief minister just months before the polls,” he said in a statement . Singh said the real reason for the defeat in Punjab was the party high command first favouring and then failing to rein in people like Navjot Sidhu, “who indulged in tarnishing the image of the party for their own personal gains”. Former Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar also questioned the appointment of Mr Channi as the Punjab Chief Minister ahead of the polls, mocking a senior party leader for reportedly describing him as an “asset”.