Navjot Sidhu tightens grip on Punjab Cong, Pargat Singh appointed Gen. Secretary

Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu on Monday appointed his close associate and Jalandhar Cantt MLA Pargat Singh as PPCC general secretary (organisation).

“With the approval of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, AICC general secretary, organisation, K C Venugopal and Punjab Congress in-charge Harish Rawat, I hereby appoint Pargat Singh as Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee general secretary, organisation, with immediate effect,” Sidhu tweeted.

The move comes five days after Sidhu appointed Lok Sabha member Dr Amar Singh, retired IPS officer Mohammad Mustafa, Dr Pyare Lal Garg and Malwinder Singh Mali as his advisers to seek their “wise counsel” on party affairs. While Mustafa declined the offer, Mali landed into a controversy over his social media post against Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh.

By getting Pargat, a two-time MLA, appointed as party general secretary, Sidhu has only fortified his hold on the state Congress unit, in which his associates and confidants are now holding key positions.

A former captain of the Indian national hockey team, Pargat Singh, in more ways than one, shares the same wavelength with Sidhu as far as politics is concerned.

Both of them have remained vocal critics of CM Amarinder Singh for not “failing to take to their logical end issues such as cases pertaining to Bargari sacrilege and Kotkapura police firing deaths, drug menace, mining mafia, farmers’ issues, and power purchase agreements signed by the previous SAD-BJP government”.