Punjab Congress chief Pratap Singh Bajwa quits

 Punjab Congress chief Pratap Singh Bajwa and state CLP leader Sunil Jakhar resigned on Thursday, amid suggestions that former chief minister Amarinder Singh may become the new state unit chief.

Assembly polls in Punjab are scheduled in 2017 and Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi has held a series of consultations in the past few months on how best to tone up the organisation in the state where its prospects appeared to be bright.

AICC General Secretary Shakeel Ahmed said that Bajwa and Jakhar have tendered their resignation to party chief Sonia Gandhi and she has accepted the resignations. Ahmed who is in-charge of party affairs in Punjab did not specify when the reconstitution of the PCC will take place, but the talk in party circles was that it could happen in a couple of days.

Reports had it that Amarinder Singh, a former Chief Minister, looked set to become the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee chief. Last week Rahul Gandhi had led a delegation of party leaders from Punjab, including Amarinder and Bajwa, to President Pranab Mukherjee to project unity in the state unit. Amarinder and Bajwa have been at loggerheads for long.

In the last Assembly polls, Gandhi had projected Amarinder as the Chief Ministerial candidate. Congress, however, failed to succeed in the polls with AICC later putting the blame to the "overconfidence" of the Amritsar MP.