Amarinder Singh Raja Warring has resigned as Punjab Congress president, sources in New Delhi said on Wednesday night. Raja is finally off the throne, as the Congress tries to put its Punjab house in order six months ahead of state elections. Former minister Vijay Inder Singla, Jalandhar Cantonment MLA and former hockey captain Pargat Singh, and Gurdaspur MP Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa are in the race to replace him, NDTV has learnt.
The party is expected to name his successor in the next 24-48 hours.
The fractiousness never really subsided; it peaked in recent months. The party’s then central in-charge Bhupesh Baghel was seen as partisan towards Warring. Warring, the Ludhiana MP, had taken charge of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee in April 2022, just after a deeply fractious Punjab Congress faced a massive drubbing from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Warring was seen as the face of one faction, with the other rallying behind Charanjit Singh Channi, who served as chief minister briefly when the Congress removed Captain Amarinder Singh before the 2022 loss. The pre-2022-loss infighting appeared to be playing out again this time, especially after the party chose to stick with Raja Warring in August.
