Congress’ campaign committee chief for Punjab Sunil Jakhar on Thursday said that the party will not name a chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming Assembly elections in the state, ANI reported.
Jakhar said that the Congress has never announced its chief ministerial candidate ahead of elections, except in 2017, which was an exception. In next year’s election too, the party will contest under a collective leadership.
The Congress leader was speaking to the media after a meeting of the party’s screening committee, which takes decisions on the selection of candidates for elections. Apart from Jakhar, the party’s General Secretary Ajay Maken and Punjab unit chief Navjot Singh Sidhu were also present at the meeting, according to ANI.
“The biggest basis for distribution of tickets is the winnability of a candidate,” Jakhar told reporters after the meeting, according to NDTV. “Another important factor will be that only one person from one family gets a ticket to contest the election.”
Congress’ Punjab unit has seen unrest over the last few months.
Amarinder Singh who became the chief minister after the party won the 2017 state elections, had stepped down from his post on September 18 after a prolonged turf war with Sidhu. In October, he quit the Congress and floated a new party, the Punjab Lok Congress, which has now decided to ally with the Bharatiya Janata Party.
On September 20, Charanjit Singh Channi took over as the new chief minister. However, soon after Sidhu resigned as the Punjab Congress chief objecting to appointments made by Channi to the posts of the state’s advocate general and director general of police.
After several rounds of talks, Sidhu withdrew his resignation in November, but has often criticised the government publicly.
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