Bhattal sticks to stand

The crisis in the Punjab Congress deepened as openly voicing her dissent in Delhi for the first time, Punjab Agriculture Minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, who is heading a group of dissident MLAs, today said she would return to the state only after Chief Minister Amarinder Singh was removed by the party high command.

By her action, effectively Bhattal has thrown down the gauntlet before none other than party president Sonia Gandhi, who during her tenure as party chief has never acceded to blackmail or threats by dissidents.

This is in complete contrast to Rajiv Gandhi who changed chief ministers at the whiff of dissidence against them (in Maharashtra in the 1980s for instance) and Indira Gandhi (in Andhra Pradesh in the early 1980s).

Sonia Gandhi has held firm and ruled in favour of chief ministers even when dissidents have had a proven record of working against the party to somehow get the chief minister out.

For instance, Gandhi did not shift ND Tewari even when Congress dissident leader Harish Rawat worked against the chief minister in an Assembly elections, justifying his action by arguing that not doing so would harm the Congress grievously.

Although the K Karunakaran-led agitation in Kerala against AK Antony is threatening to boil over and split the Congress, she has given no indication to Antony's supporters that they should look for a new leader.

Instead she is reported to have approached the other allies of the Congress like the Muslim League to request them to stand fast by Antony, should the matter reach the floor of the Assembly.

This time, however, the battle has been brought to the high command's heartland. "The economic condition is very bad in Punjab. Still the chief minister brought MLAs loyal to him by air yesterday to Delhi to parade them before the AICC committee and put them up in a five-star hotel," she said after a breakfast meeting with her supporters at the Punjab Bhawan here.

Although the Bhattal group sources said their senior leaders were planning to submit a list of 35 MLAs with their signatures to the party high command pressing their demand, the chief minister said this number did not exceed 20.

However, AICC sources said the anger against Amarinder Singh was such that 37 out of the 65 party MLAs in the Assembly could rebel against him if pushed against the wall.

A committee of some senior AICC leaders is handling the Punjab imbroglio. If Amarinder Singh was in a strong position earlier, this has only weakened him because dissidents now believe they have a court of appeal.

Meanwhile, a corruption case against Bhattal is on in Punjab during her chief ministership in 1996. This, however, does not seemed to have dampened either her enthusiasm nor that of her supports in conducting their campaign against the "profligacy" of the Amarinder Singh regime.