Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Friday met Navjot Singh Sidhu at Punjab Bhawan in Chandigarh ahead of a ceremony to appoint the cricketer-turned-politician as the chief of the Congress' state unit, signalling a thaw in the relationship between the two leaders. This was the first time in nearly four months that Sidhu a♔nd Singh met each other.
Four working presidents of the Punjab Congress will also as💧sume charge at the ceremony at the party's state headquarters.
Speaking to reporters outsi🌟de the Punjab Bhawan, Congress MLA Pargat Singh said Sidhu met the chief minister over tea in the presence of AICC in-charge of Punjab affairs Harish Rawat.
The two lead𒁏ers sat next to each other and the meeting between them was cordial, he added.
Senior Congress leaders Manish T🍬ewari, Partap Singh Bajwa and Lal Sinꦜgh were also present.
The chie☂f minister's media adviser tweeted pictures of the two leaders having a c💟hat.
The Congress leaders ▨will head to another venue where Sidhu will assume charge as the party's new state unit chief.
Singh, who reached here from his farmhouse in Siswan, had invited party leaders for ♛tea at the Punjab Bhawan.
Sidhu came from Patiala and went toﷺ the Punjab Bhawan shortly before Singh's arrival.
Media was not allowed ꦐentry 🎐inside the Punjab Bhawan.
Ministers, Congr💞ess MLAs and other senior party leaders were🌳 also present at the Punjab Bhawan.
Kuljit Singh Nagra and Sangat Singh Gilzian, two of the four 🍨newly-appointed working presidents of the state Congress, had on Thursday extended a fܫormal invite to the chief minister at his farmhouse in Mohali's Siswan for the installation ceremony. The invitation letter was signed by over 55 legislators.
In an apparent bid to bury the di🧸fferences with the chief minister, Sidhu had separately requested Singh to come for the installation ceremony and said he had "no personal agenda".
Sidhu and Singh have been at loggerheads for some time, with the Amr𒁏itsar (East) MLA recently attacking the chief minister over desecration case🍬s.
Singh had earlier opposed Sidhu's appointment as the stateꦦ Congress chief and said he would not meet him until the c✨ricketer-turned-politician apologised for his "derogatory" tweets against him.
Onꦡ Thursday, after the Congress leaders met the chief minister, the latter's media adviser had tweeted, "Punjab CM @capt_amarinder has invited all @INCPunjab MLAs, MPs and senior party functionaries at Punjab Bhawan for tea at 10 am on Friday. They will all then go to Punjab Congress Bhawan together from there for the installation of the new PPCC team."
Congress president Sonia Gandhi appointed Sidhu as the new president of the party's Punjab unit on Sunday, notwithstanding the strong opposit🐈ion from Singh.
She🏅 also appointed four working presidents in the Punjab Congress -- Sangat Singhౠ Gilzian, Sukhwinder Singh Danny, Pawan Goel and Kuljit Singh Nagra -- to assist Sidhu in the run-up to the state Assembly polls next year.
On Wednesday, several legislators backing Sidhu had saiꦏd there was no need for him to tender an apology to ♕the chief minister.
Tensions between Singh and Sidhu flared up in April after the Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed a probe report into th♏e 2015 Kotkapura polic🍒e firing incident.
Sidhu attacked the chief minister through his tweets over the issue of alleged delay in justice in the 2015 sacrilege and subsequent police-fiꦓring incidents.
The Amritsar legislator had ꧅resigned as a state min🅺ister in 2019 after he was divested of his local bodies portfolio.
Sid🐠hu had switched sides from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to the Congress before the 2017 state Assembly polls.
With PTI inputs
