Punjab / Congress announces poll committee in Punjab; Sidhu to be chairman

New Delhi: The Congress on Monday constituted a 29-member state election committee in Punjab to be headed by party president Navjot Singh Sidhu. Assembly election to the state is due early next year.

“Congress president has approved the proposal of the formation of the Pradesh Election Committee of Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee, as follows, with immediate effect,” the party said in a statement signed by Congress general secretary KC Venugopal.

Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi has been appointed as a member in the committee. Also, all Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs and all ministers in the Punjab government have been appointed as members.

The party has also appointed presidents and working presidents to 28 district-level committees in the run-up to the assembly election.

On December 6, the party constituted an election screening committee, comprising Ajay Maken, Chandan Yadav and Krishna Allavaru, with state in-charge Harish Choudhary, Channi, Sidhu, Sunil Jakhar and all Congress secretaries in-charge of Punjab as ex-officio members.

Besides, the party appointed Ambika Soni as chairperson of the election coordination committee, Sunil Jhakar as chairperson of election campaign committee and Pratap Singh Bajwa as chairperson of manifesto committee the same day. All the three leaders were also appointed members of the state election committee.

Former CM Rajinder Kaul Bhattal, party MLAs Raminder Singh Awala, Balbir Singh Sidhu, Shyam Sunder Arora, Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi, Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, Ajaib Singh Bhatti and Navtej Singh Cheema have been named in the latest panel.

Other members included HS Hanspal, Mohinder Singh Kay Pee, KL Sharma, Laal Singh Sr, Kuljit Singh Nagra, Sukhvinder Singh Danny Bandala, Pawan Goyal, Gurpreet Kangar, Hamid Masih, Raj Kumar Chabbewal, Balbir Rani Sodhi, Barinder Dhillon, Akshay Sharma and Nirmal Kaira.