Senior Congress leader and ex-district president Ludhiana Pawan Dewan today rubbished the charges of indiscipline levelled against him by the Punjab Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa. He said, it was actually Bajwa who was resorting to indiscipline by trying to instigate people against former Chief Minister and Congress Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha Capt Amarinder Singh.Addressing a press conference here today, Dewan said that even after becoming the PCC president Bajwa remained insecure and from day one wanted the party leaders and office bearers to issue statements against Capt Amarinder Singh. He said, the main reason for his removal as the DCC president was that he had refused to oblige Bajwa by not being signatory to various statements against Capt Amarinder Singh that were issued at his (Bajwa’s) behest.
The former district Congress president said, the immediate provocation appeared to be his working for the Congress candidate Ms Preneet Kaur in Patiala while Bajwa wanted him to campaign in Talwandi Sabo. “I told him that I had an urban experience and it would be difficult for me to work in rural Talwandi Sabo and he took offence of it”, he said about Bajwa.
He revealed that Bajwa would often call him asking for funds. “He would often call me that Ludhiana being the rich city I should lead in the fund raising and if I could not there were many others ready to better”, he said, while adding, “I straightway told him that I have never asked anyone for money and I can never do it”.Dewan said, he was seeking appointment with the Congress President Ms Sonia Gandhi to urge her to remove Bajwa from the PCC presidentship if the party really wanted to save the party in the state. “Since the day Bajwa was appointed the president the party has been destroyed so much so he (Bajwa) could not win even his own seat of Gurdaspur and was defeated even in his home assembly segment of Qadian”, he said.He claimed that had Capt Amarinder Singh not contested from Amritsar, the party would have drawn a total blank in Punjab under Bajwa’s leadership. He said, after Capt Amarinder Singh joined the poll fray the workers’ morale was boosted that led to the party’s victory in Jalandhar and Ludhiana. “Otherwise Bajwa was set to preside over party’s doom”, he remarked.
The Congress leader said, he has spent his entire life in the party and his family members had been put behind bars during Janata government when Bajwa’s father was an Akali minister. “Will he teach us the discipline?” he asked, while adding, “I have worked for the party during the terrorism days while Bajwa was sheltering and hobnobbing with the terrorists”.Dewan had a dig at the PCC president that he removed him while he was abroad. He said, the PCC president did not have a courtesy of telling me that he wanted to change him and did it clandestinely while he was away. “He got the feel at the meeting itself when his brother had to delay the announcement of my replacement as the workers protested his high handedness”, he said, while referring to the resentment and protest by the party workers during the DCC meeting which was held in absence of the DCC presidents.
“It was so characteristic of their image and reputation of illegally grabbing the properties and land the way they broke open into the District Congress office on Sunday”, he remarked and added, this only reflected his insecurity.Dewan also had a dig at AICC Secretary Harish Chaudhary who, he said, was acting more like Bajwa’s private secretary than that of the party. “The person who lost his own security deposit and came a distant third in the last parliamentary elections was trying to revive the party in Punjab”, he said about Chaudhary, while adding, “I don’t want to comment about his reputation and the reasons for his acting blindly at Bajwa’s behest".