Are you thinking of Afghanistan? Chidambaram on Punjab/C'garh queries
Darpan News Desk IANS, 26 Aug, 2021 10:57 AM
Panaji, Aug 26 (IANS) Former Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Thursday asked media persons if they were confusing Punjab with Afghanistan, when asked to comment on the reports of rebellion in the party's ranks in the northern Indian state.
"There is no rebellion in Chhattisgarh, there is no rebellion in Punjab. You are mixing up Afghanistan. There is no rebellion," Chidambaram told reporters at the state Congress headquarters in Panaji.
Chidambaram was addressing a press conference at the fag-end of his two-day visit to the state in the capacity as the All India Congress Committee's senior observer in charge of Goa ahead of the 2022 state assembly polls.
Chidambaram said that "internal matters" within the Congress party should not be construed as rebellion, citing the example of the change of leadership in BJP-led Karnataka, where a sitting chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa was replaced by Basavaraj Bommai.
"These are internal matters which are discussed within the party. Did you describe the Karnataka change of guard as a rebellion?" Chidambaram said.
Punjab annually generates 20 million tonnes of paddy straw and this is normally set on fire to quickly clear the fields for the next crop, resulting in choking of the National Capital Region (NCR) in October and November.
Priyanka's remarks came after farmers on Tuesday evening vacated the railway tracks and highways in Punjab after the Amarinder Singh government accepted the demands of the sugarcane farmers.
The 'rebel' legislators reached Dehradun in the morning to apprise Rawat about the mood of the public against the Amarinder Singh-led government in the state. They, among 20-odd party legislators, have been demanding replacement of Amarinder Singh as he failed to fulfill the 2017 poll promises.
Rao also slammed Chief Minister Pramod Sawant for raking up 10-year-old allegations related to the mining scam in an attempt to put Congress leaders in the dock in pollbound Goa.
According to the customs department, one male passenger aged 27 years, flew in from Dubai by Emirates flight EK-544 was intercepted at exit gate and his baggage which were found to be unusually heavy were subjected for detailed examination.
According to the sources, the panel members were reported about the delay and red tapism in the bureaucracy which has been hampering the pace of development in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh and many new schemes announced by the Union government were getting affected.
