Dewan rubbishes claims, says organised all party meetings

Dewan was recently issued show cause notice for speaking against Bajwa in media.

AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi with Punjab Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa at the Congress Bhawan in Sector 15, Chandigarh, on Thursday. (Express photo by Sumit Malhotra)

Former District Congress president Pawan Dewan on Wednesday rubbished the allegations levelled against him by the Punjab Congress Committee president Partap Singh Bajwa that he remained absent from party affairs due to trip in Canada for six months and that he did not organise any party programmes.

Dewan said, he organised all the monthly meetings, protests- one of which was attended by the AICC Secretary Harish Chaudhary and also spent three weeks in Patiala campaigning for the party candidate Preneet Kaur in the bye-election there. He said, rather it was for this particular reason that he was replaced as Bajwa wanted him not to campaign in Patiala but at Talwandi Sabo instead.

He said, he went to Canada for fifteen days only and to UK for a week. “If Mr Bajwa can go to US and Dubai every now and then, why can’t we go. Is it a crime to go abroad,” he said. Referring to Mr Bajwa’s charges that the ongoing factionalism in Ludhiana Congress were instigated by him, Dewan said, it was unfair of Bajwa to blame him.

He said that he will meet all the senior leaders in the party high command “My loyalty towards the party must not be judged by what a particular person (Bajwa) thinks about me, but my contribution for over three decades”,” he said.

Dewan was recently issued show cause notice for speaking against Bajwa in media and later he was ousted as Ludhiana Congress president and replaced by Gurpreet Singh Gogi.

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