AICC observers in talks with Punjab leaders to pick new CM

Hectic talks on Sunday were going on to finalise the name of new leader of the Punjab Congress Legislature Party (CLP), a day after Amarinder Singh resigned as the chief minister.

All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary and Punjab affairs in-charge Harish Rawat and party's central observers Ajay Maken and Harish Chaudhary are camping at a hotel here, holding discussions and taking feedback.

Former Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar, the party's current state unit president Navjot Singh Sidhu and Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa are the frontrunners for the post of the CLP leader, who will be the new chief minister.

According to sources, the central observers were also in touch with the party leadership in Delhi.

The sources said the party may also go in for two deputy chief ministers in order to balance the caste equations.

If the party goes for a Hindu face as the CLP leader, then a Sikh and a Dalit can be made deputy CMs, they said.

Meanwhile, the party legislators said they will accept whatever the party leadership decides on the CLP leader.

A Punjab CLP meeting, which was slated for 11 am on Sunday, was deferred as consensus was yet to be made on the name of the new CLP leader. Earlier, several legislators have gone to the residences of Jakhar and Randhawa to meet them.

Randhawa, a minister in the outgoing cabinet of Amarinder Singh whose name is doing the rounds, asserted that he has never hankered after posts.

When asked that his name was among the frontrunners, Randhawa told the reporters that he or his family "never hankers for any post".

"A chief minister remains (in the post) only till the time his party and people of the state stand by him," he said, in an apparent dig at Amarinder Singh.

Punjab Congress legislators on Saturday authorised party president Sonia Gandhi to pick a new CLP leader, who will be the next chief minister of the state. Congress veteran Amarinder Singh had put in his papers after speaking to the party president and shortly before a crucial meeting of the CLP here on Saturday evening, with less than five months to go for the Assembly polls after a bruising power struggle with state party chief Navjot Singh Sidhu.