Chandigarh: Ending weeks of speculation over a leadership overhaul, the Congress on Wednesday retained Amrinder Singh Raja Warring as Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president and Partap Singh Bajwa as leader of the Opposition, opting for continuity as it prepares for the 2027 assembly elections.At the same time, the party announced a new organisational team, assigning key roles to former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi and senior leaders Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and Vijay Inder Singla in an apparent bid to balance caste representation and contain factionalism.Channi, who was widely seen as a contender for the PPCC chief’s post, has been appointed chairman of the Campaign Committee. Randhawa will head the Core Committee, while former minister Vijay Inder Singla has been named chairman of the Election Management and Coordination Committee. Dr Amar Singh will head the manifesto committee.The appointments follow weeks of consultations by the Congress high command. A three-member panel of observers — Ajay Maken, Meenakshi Natarajan and Bhajan Lal Jatav — met around 60 senior Punjab leaders before submitting its report. Rahul Gandhi also held one-on-one meetings with Warring, Bajwa, Randhawa, Channi and Singla, while Warring, Randhawa and Channi separately met Congress general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal in New Delhi.Though several leaders had sought a change in the state leadership ahead of the elections, party sources said the high command concluded that replacing Warring could aggravate factionalism. They said his efforts to strengthen the organisation at the grassroots and appoint district Congress presidents worked in his favour, while no consensus emerged on an alternative.The party also appointed Sukhwinder Singh Danny, Raj Kumar Verka and Sangat Singh Gilzian as working presidents. Sukhpal Singh Khaira, Rana Gurjeet Singh and Dr Dharamvira Gandhi have been named co-chairpersons of the Campaign Committee. Former deputy chief minister OP Soni, Razia Sultana, Kuljit Singh Nagra, Angad Singh Saini and Bharat Bhushan Ashu will serve as co-chairpersons of the Election Management and Coordination Committee, while Gurjeet Singh Aujla, Pargat Singh, Hardial Singh Kamboj and Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria have been appointed co-chairpersons of the manifesto committee.Welcoming the appointments, Warring thanked the party leadership for constituting what he described as a broad-based team to lead the Congress into the 2027 assembly elections.“Ours is a team in which every player has a vital role to perform. Every worker is as important as every leader in ensuring victory for the people of Punjab,” Warring said.He added that the Congress owed it to the people of Punjab to free the state from what he described as the “callous, authoritarian, autocratic and corrupt” AAP govt.Box | Dalit leaders get key rolesThe appointments also underline the Congress’s attempt to broaden social representation. Besides Channi, senior Dalit leaders Dr Amar Singh, Sukhwinder Singh Danny and Raj Kumar Verka have been assigned key organisational responsibilities. Sangat Singh Gilzian, who has been made a working president, belongs to the OBC community.
