Chandigarh: Captain Amarinder Singh, who was virtually forced to quit as Punjab chief minister by the Congress high command six weeks ago, formally resigned from the party on Monday.
But he couldn’t quite dissociate himself fully from the party he had served for five decades as the name of his new party suggests. The Captain, who had said last month that he would be floating a new party, announced that it will be known as ‘Punjab Lok Congress’.
Amarinder’s seven-page resignation letter to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi comes days after he remarked — in response to media reports that he was engaged in backchannel talks with senior Congress leaders who want him to stay in the party — that the time for rapprochement was over and his decision to leave Congress was final.
“Reports of back-end talks with @INCIndia are incorrect. The time for rapprochement is over. The decision to part ways with the party was taken after much thought and is final. I’m grateful to (Congress president) Sonia Gandhi ji for her support but will not stay in Congress now,” Amarinder’s media advisor Raveen Thukral quoted him as saying in a Twitter post on Saturday.
Assembly elections in Punjab are due in three months’ time.
Amarinder has already said that his party will contest all 117 seats in Punjab.
