Bhattal,Captain slug it out at show of unity for Jakhar

Hinting that Captain too should now put in his papers,she said: “When I met Sonia Gandhi last week,I owned up moral responsibility for the poll results and offered to resign. I welcome the party’s decision of selecting a capable and good leader. As for reasons for defeat,there are many. The coterie factor too will be looked into. But now our next battle is the 2014 parliamentary polls for which we are all together,” said Bhattal,leaving Amarinder red-faced.

Replying earlier to a question on his coterie,Amarinder had rubbished inaccessibility as a reason. “Who is my coterie? Whoever comes to work with me is labelled my coterie. I don’t go by what people say. I toured Punjab thrice within 13 months of taking over as the Congress president,” he said.

On the voices of dissent by Gurdaspur MP Pratap Bajwa,Union minister Ashwani Kumar and several MLAs,Amarinder issued a stern warning.

“They are free to question my leadership but I will only resign if my party president asks me to. But no one will be allowed to vitiate the party’s atmosphere and demoralise our workers by going to the press. If they do so,stringent action will be taken against them. If they have a grievance to air,they can meet those at helm of affairs at the centre and in the state. Punjab affairs in-charge Gulchain Singh Charak has issued a press statement to make it clear that indiscipline will not be tolerated,” he said.

He added: “I have asked all defeated and winning MLAs to submit details on what they think were the problems — from rebels,non-cooperation of senior leaders and other factors. Then we will be able to get the constituency-wise picture.”

Amarinder went on to tell workers to to hit the ground once again. “I will go to every district to meet workers. In a few months,we have corporation polls and then panchayat elections. We will sweep the 2014 Lok Sabha polls,” hr added. As for problem of plenty when it comes to Congress leaders,Amarinder repartee was,“Where are too many leaders in Punjab Congress? Sonia’s remark was for Uttar Pradesh.”