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« on: December 06, 2011, 11:40:53 AM »
Former Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee leader Shamsher Singh Dullo has been included in the party's state election committee. Some days ago he had raised the dalit and Hindu card and also questioned dominance of jat Sikhs in Congress and on Punjab chief minister's post.
The election panel is headed by senior All India Congress Committee leader C P Joshi and has 11 members and five special invitees. Dullo, in a specially convened press conference on November 19, had said that scheduled caste (SC) leaders had not been given sufficient representation in the committee. He had demanded that a "principle of rotation" be implemented in Punjab wherein leaders from Hindu, SC or backward caste communities should be given a chance to become CM if Congress came to power.
It is learnt that Dullo had met Congress president Sonia Gandhi two days back and on Friday she gave the approval for including him in the committee. Notably, this comes after Jalandhar District Congress Committee leader Kamal Sachdeva was expelled from the party a few months back for articulating similar views. However, after Dullo's utterances, PPCC president Capt Amarinder Singh and AICC general secretary Gulchain Singh Charak had played down his comments. Charak had even said the remarks "did not amount to indiscipline".
Sources in Congress revealed that Dullo was annoyed with PPCC leadership after he was not included in the Punjab Election Committee. Also, his demand for a ticket from Khanna assembly seat, which is now a general seat after delimitation, was cold-shouldered by PPCC leaders. Sources added that Congress high command wanted to placate Dullo through his inclusion in the election committee as it could not afford further articulation on similar lines which could cause annoyance among dalits and Hindus, or put a question mark on Amarinder's leadership.
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