Punjab minister lashes out at 'mercenary' Navjot Sidhu for dividing Congress

Chandigarh [India], December 19 (ANI): Senior Congress leader and Minister for Technical Education Rana Gurjeet Singh on Sunday lashed out at the Punjab Congress Committee President Navjot Singh Sidhu for trying to create divisions within the party and questioning the loyalty of the true and traditional Congressmen.
"Beware and mind your language Sidhu while talking about a true Congressman", Rana told Sidhu, while asserting, "you are just like a mercenary having joined the party just with the sole purpose of becoming the Chief Minister, while I have been in the party right from my birth".
Rana, while responding to Sidhu's remarks about him made at Sultanpur Lodhi on Saturday that it was an end of the road for him (Rana), said, "unlike Sidhu, I am a born Congressman and have not joined the party for the sole purpose to become Chief Minister (like a trader)".
He said that Sidhu was just a "political mercenary bereft of any principles or ideology".
"It is an irony that someone who is basically a political party hopper and has not even spent five years in the party, is preaching and pontificating to people like us who have spent an entire lifetime in the service of the party," he said.
Taking a dig at Sidhu's flip-flops, Rana added, "keeping in mind Sidhu's unstable and eccentric behavior, nobody is sure about you whether you will stay in Congress till Vidhan Sabha elections or runoff from the battle of ballot well before.
"But sooner you leave better it will be for the party as you have divided and damaged the party from within as if you were pursuing some hidden agenda of your 'real' political masters who are still pulling your strings", he said.
The senior Congress leader questioned the intentions of Sidhu in opposing his own government and the Chief Minister, saying he has now been exposed. "You have been openly criticizing our Chief Minister as you have started feeling jealous and insecure about his popularity among the masses", Rana told Sidhu and warned him against weakening the party by trying to create divisions and fissures.
As party president, your key responsibility is to keep the party united, but you did not keep any stone unturned to create fissures in the Campaign Committee, Manifesto Committee, and Screening Committee, which are constituted by the party high command, Rana added. (ANI)