Captain hits out at Bajwa, says PPCC chief not his friend

Chandigarh,Congress Deputy Leader in Lok Sabha and former Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Monday hit out at Punjab Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa, saying that the latter was neither his friend nor well-wisher. “Why shall I invite him? He is neither my friend nor well-wisher,” retorted the Congress leader when asked why Bajwa was not called at the lunch hosted to felicitate Captain’s newly-elected MLA Preneet Kaur on her oath-taking occasion in Chandigarh this afternoon. The Captain’s remark has once again brought to fore the intense infighting within the main Opposition party in Punjab.

However, today’s luncheon and oath-taking ceremony of Preneet, which turned out to be Amarinder’s show of strength, projected former CM as the strongman in the Punjab Congress with almost 34 of the total 45 party MLAs attending the functions. While Bajwa’s MLA wife Charanjit Kaur Bajwa, Brahm Mohindra and Randeep Singh Nabha were the prominent MLAs, who skipped the ceremony, few other absentee legislators – Arvind Khanna, Kewal Dhillon, Rana Gurmeet Singh Sodhi and Rana Gurjeet Singh – were out of country and conveyed their well-wishes and reaffirmed support to Amarinder over phone from abroad, sources close to Captain claimed.

Justifying not inviting Bajwa at today’s functions, Amarinder said, “The lunch was hosted by CLP and the party MLAs were invited by the CLP leader while I invited my friends and well-wishers.”

Standing by Captain’s side, CLP leader Sunil Jakhar said he had invited Bajwa’s MLA wife Charanjit Kaur, who expressed her inability to come due to her pressing family engagements in Delhi.

Former CM Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, with whom also Captain had been running a love-and-hate relationship ever since he had become CM in 2002, and Lal Singh were present on the occasion.