On the eve of former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh's show of strength tomorrow, two former Union Ministers today came out in his support.
The former Union Ministers Ashwani Kumar and Manish Tiwari said Singh stands "tall" among the leaders in the state and there is a need to revive the party and unite the cadres in Punjab.
The comments by Kumar and Tiwari come in the backdrop of leadership tussle in PCC headed by Pratap Singh Bajwa against whom the former Chief Minister has raised a banner of revolt.
Sources say that in tomorrow's show of strength of Amarinder Singh in his Moti Bagh palace in Patiala, 30 MLAs, besides 70 other district presidents and former MLAs are likely to attend.
They say that the meeting will strategise how to take on ruling Akali-BJP combine in the state amid changing equations between the two alliance partners.
"The Congress high command is fully seized of the ground situation in the state. The mood of the moment is to forge unity within the party to take on the Akali-BJP combine which has totally lost credibility in the state. The Congress cadres are looking for a leader who can galvanise the public mood and on that score Amarinder Singh stands tall," Ashwani Kumar told PTI.
"The fact that he (Amarinder Singh) is the tallest leader of the party in Punjab is an escapable reality. If he is articulating a point of view, obviously he would have taken the ground level situation into account. It should be taken with gravitas," Tiwari said.
Tiwari said if Singh is articulating something "it needs to be taken seriously", though he said any change of leadership in a state is the sole prerogative of the Congress President by convention and tradition.
