A mellowed rebel camp of the Punjab Congress today authorised Rajinder Kaur Bhattal and Sukhwant Kaur Binder to ‘‘talk to the party high command’’. Bhattal followed it up, saying she had given ‘‘no deadline’’ to the party leadership to sack Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.Sources said the rebels had turned down an offer to appoint one of the dissident leaders as deputy chief minister with Bhattal as head of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee.The 11 ministers in Bhattal’s group were all set to resign from the government today at their morning ‘‘strategy’’ session. Bhattal had barely started her meeting when, in a dramatic twist, ‘‘some senior AICC leader’’ called her up. Bhattal rushed out and the meeting was called off.She surfaced around 6.30 pm to reconvene the meeting of the MLAs who promptly ‘‘authorised’’ her and Binder to ‘‘convey the grievances’’ to the party high command. From the Chief Minister’s camp, Ministers Lal Singh and Chowdhry Jagjit Singh were also called. ‘‘Binder and I would be here to take the views of our group to the party high command. I am also confident that the party leadership will do full justice to us,’’ Bhattal said today.‘‘Whatever is in party interest will be fine by us,’’ she said. On retaining Amarinder as CM, she said: ‘‘We have made many sacrifices in the interest of the party.’’‘‘We are awaiting the decision of the party leadership on the complaints we have placed before them. After considering all sides, the decision of the party leadership would be agreeable to us,’’ she said.
