Punjab MLAs meet Rahul Gandhi, back Amarinder Singh's return to lead role

NEW DELHI: A majority of Congress MLAs from Punjab who met party vice president Rahul Gandhi today threw their weight behind former chief minister Amarinder Singh and sought early revival of the party to successfully take on the Akali-BJP combine in the upcoming assembly elections.

With this exercise, the current leadership row between Singh and Punjab Congress chief Pratap Singh Bajwa is set to be resolved with a new party chief likely to be in place soon.

The party MLAs met Gandhi in two batches of 10 each today and yesterday and put forth their views on resolving the row in the state and revive the party's prospects.

Amid a raging leadership tussle between Singh and Bajwa, Gandhi had invited party legislators from the state and sought their views. Majority of the MLAs who met Rahul today described Singh as the "tallest" leader of the party in the state, saying he could lead the revival of the party.

There were some dissenting voices too, with one or two MLAs in each batch today asking for the party's revival by asking the high command to assert itself. They too, however, sought a change of guard in the leadership, saying Bajwa has not been able to take everyone along.

"We appreciate Rahul Gandhi for sparing time to hear our grievances and those of the Congress workers at the grassroots to bring an end to the leadership row and demanded unity in Congress ranks," said an MLA from Punjab.

Another MLA, however, said, "Barring one or two dissenting voices, a majority of the legislators stood behind Amarinder and described him as the tallest leader of the party."

With most of the MLAs urging for a strong leadership for the state unit, calls backing Amarinder's return to the centre stage of Punjab politics were openly made today, sources said.

Gandhi had met a total of 17 MLAs yesterday, including a group of Dalit legislators in two groups. Except Bajwa's wife Charanjit Kaur Bajwa, most legislators are learnt to have backed the need for leadership change with Amarinder being the front-runner.