Senior Congress leader in charge of Punjab Harish Rawat on Wednesday said that he will dismiss advisors to state Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu for their comments on Kashmir and India-Pakistan ties if Sidhu did not act, NDTV reported.
Sidhu’s advisor Malwinder Mali had questioned the need for Article 370 and Article 35A of the Constitution if Kashmir was an integral part of India.
Kashmir’s special status was revoked on August 5, 2019, a move that Opposition parties, including the Congress, have vociferously criticised.
Mali had also posted a sketch of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi that showed her next to a heap of human skulls, holding a gun that had a skull hanging on its nozzle.
Another advisor to Sidhu, Pyare Lal Garg, had questioned Chief Minister Amarinder Singh about his criticism of Pakistan, and said those comments were not in Punjab’s interest.
Rawat said that the whole party had objections to Mali’s and Garg’s statements. “Kashmir is a part of India,” he said. “These advisors were not appointed by the party. They should be removed. If there is a need, I will issue the directions.” He added that their remarks were an embarrassment and not acceptable.
Rawat is a part of the panel that the Congress had formed in June to resolve the tiff between Sidhu and Singh, who had been criticising each other publicly for two years.
On Monday, Sidhu had summoned Mali and Garg to his house after their comments, but Garg had said they merely discussed the development of the state during the meeting.
Mali told ANI that he had said whatever he had to say on social media, and that it was final. “If anyone makes a mistake, they should reflect,” he said. “We must continue to work [for the] welfare of Punjab.”
A press release by the Chief Minister’s Office on Sunday had called the advisors’ comments “atrocious and ill-conceived”, adding that they could be dangerous to the peace and stability of Punjab and the country.
Singh had urged Mali and Garg to stick to giving advice to Sidhu and “not speak on matters of which they clearly had little or no knowledge, and had no understanding of the implications of their comments”.
The chief minister had asserted that Kashmir “was and is an inalienable part of India” and that Mali’s comments effectively and inexplicably toed Pakistan’s line. “This is totally anti-national,” Singh said.
As for Garg’s statement, Singh said that Sidhu’s advisor was disconnected from the ground reality. The people of Punjab know that Pakistan was pushing weapons and drugs into the state, and soldiers from the state were dying at the borders, he added.
‘Election will be fought under Singh’s leadership’
Twenty-three Congress MLAs, including four ministers, have demanded Amarinder Singh’s removal as Punjab chief minister. But Harish Rawat on Tuesday confirmed that the party will contest the 2022 Assembly elections under Singh’s leadership.
“Every party has a set procedure [to select the leadership],” he told NDTV on Wednesday. “When the new legislature of the party sits [after the election] then they will take a decision.”
Rawat, however, claimed that the leaders had not sought Singh’s removal. They had instead raised local issues, he told NDTV.
“Issues come up as things progress and it depends on the local leaders how they address it,” he said. “In this case, the government could not solve it, and so things escalated to this level.” He said that the issue would be resolved soon.
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