Form of words:
Chandigarh: Citing continued insults by the Congress leadership over the past two months, Captain Amarinder Singh on Saturday resigned as Punjab chief minister after four-and-a-half years after he led the party to a landslide victory in the state.
Amarinder submitted his resignation and the resignation of his council of ministers to Governor Banwarilal Purohit in the evening. The resignation has come in the wake of the Congress high command calling a meeting Party’s Punjab MLAs at 5 pm today.
The 79-year-old leader was the Congress party’s most famous chief minister in the country but was forced to resign this morning by the party high command, after months of internal strife leading to a vertical split with one camp in the Punjab unit. The ministers and MLAs who supported Amarinder and the other, party president Navjot Singh Sidhu.
Addressing a press conference after his resignation, Amarinder said he felt “humiliated” and that although “for the time being” he remained with the party, he had “options open” for his political future.
Captain Amarinder Singh said, “I have been humiliated thrice by the Congress leadership in the last two months. They have called MLAs to Delhi twice and now have called CLP in Chandigarh.” In the morning that he will resign.
He said he would decide his future political course of action in consultation with his supporters who stood by him for more than five decades.
“Obviously they (Congress high command) don’t have faith in me and I didn’t think I could handle my job. But the way he handled the whole matter made me feel humiliated,” he told media persons at the Raj Bhavan gate.
“Let them appoint whomever they trust,” he said, taking a dig at the party leadership.
with wife, son
Amarinder’s wife and Congress MP Preneet Kaur accompanied him to the Governor’s House. MPs Gurjit Singh Aujla and Ravneet Singh Bittu, Advocate General Atul Nanda and Chief Principal Secretary to CM Suresh Kumar along with their son Raninder Singh were also present.
Earlier in the day, Amarinder had called a meeting of ministers and MLAs who supported him for a meeting at his official residence at 2 pm. However, apart from some of his close aides and MLAs in the cabinet, not many attended the meeting.
Amarinder had led the Congress to a resounding victory in the 2017 assembly elections after 10 years of Akali rule in the state. The Congress secured a thumping majority of 80 MLAs in the 117-member assembly.
(Edited by Arun Prashant)
Read also: Amarinder’s 5 Vs Sidhu’s 5 – Key Players Of Punjab Congress Fight For Supremacy
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