Randhawa Made Punjab Cong Chief

Soni, who had been the acting president of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) for over three months, appeared upset with the development. When Azad announced that Soni would now work as an AICC observer for Punjab, she remarked, I am not too sure about that... Randhawa has been in the state politics for over four decades. He has been a former minister. He had been elected to the assembly for many terms. He lost the Lok Sabha election from Ferozpur in 1992. Since then he has been lying low.

In his remarks, Randhawa criticised the Akalis for aiding and abetting the terrorists in the past. He wondered how the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had decided to tie up with the Akalis to fight the assembly polls.

Soni has been included in the 10-member state-level campaign committee for the assembly elections, likely to be held in the second week of February.

Azad will be the chairman of the committee. The other members of the committee are, Bhattal, Randhawa, former Union ministers Balram Jakhar, Buta Singh, Manmohan Singh and Raghunandan Lal Bhatia, who is also the sitting Lok Sabha member from Amritsar, Sukhbans Kaur Bhinder, another sitting Lok Sabha member from Gurdaspur and Venod Sharma, a Rajya Sabha member from the state.

Azad announced that barring Bhattal, no member of the committee would contest the assembly election. He said, All others will remain busy in the election campaign. Azad also said that the new office-bearers of the PCC would be announced soon. He said merit would be the sole criterion in the selection of the partys candidates. When it was pointed out that a number of Congress MLAs, including some ministers, were facing charges of corruption as well as having links with terrorists, Azad remarked, We do not consider a person guilty till the charges are proved.

Otherwise, it is very easy to level allegations against politicians.