Two days after he resigned from the Congress, Pritpal Singh Baliawal Wednesday joined the Punjab Lok Congress and was welcomed into the party by its founder and former chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh. Baliawal, who resigned from Congress Monday, held the positions of national coordinator, in charge of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh Kisan Congress and senior media panelist within the party. In his resignation letter, marked to AICC president Sonia Gandhi, Baliawal had said that it has become “very hard to defend nonsense”, the “anti-government remarks” and “close ties with Pakistan” of Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu. After joining the Punjab Lok Congress, Baliawal invited all those “for whom national security was an important issue” to join hands with Amarinder. He said the Congress high command did not like it when Amarinder was meeting Union Minister Amit Shah to sort out the farmers' issues. “Now farmers are returning home happy. Though it took a year, but the end result has been good,” he said. Baliawal also lashed out at Sidhu challenging him to name 25 block presidents of Congress in five minutes. Without naming Sidhu’s chief strategic adviser Mohd Mustafa, he said, “You (Sidhu) can make someone’s daughter-in-law a chairperson even if she does not know anything.” Hitting out at Mustafa's wife and Cabinet Minister Razia Sultana, he asked Transport Minister Amrinder Singh Raja Warring to disclose why the department was in losses when she held charge of the department. Earlier, he had told Indian Express that he decided to resign from Congress over three reasons: “First: even as Sidhu claims that he raises genuine issues and doesn’t hesitate in speaking against own party on right issues, he has not uttered a single word yet on appointment of Jagdish Tytler as permanent invitee in Delhi Congress. Second: Sidhu’s ties with Pakistan and Imran Khan are something impossible to defend in front of other opposition parties. Third: Sidhu is always at loggerheads with Chief Minister Charanjit Channi and former PCC chief Sunil Jakhar and not meeting common Congress workers”.
