Pushed to Punjab politics margins, Capt Amarinder likely to merge PLC with BJP | Political Pulse News,The Indian Express
A former Congress veteran, Amarinder resigned from the membership of the grand old party in early November last year one-and-half months after he was unceremoniously replaced with Charanjit Singh Channi as the CM by the Congress leadership.
The former Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh is likely to merge his Punjab Lok Congress (PLC) with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the coming days upon his return from London, where the 80-year-old leader has been recuperating now following a spinal surgery.
A former Congress veteran, Amarinder resigned from the membership of the grand old party in early November last year one-and-half months after he was unceremoniously replaced with Charanjit Singh Channi as the CM by the Congress leadership in the wake of his protracted tussle with the then state party chief Navjot Singh Sidhu.
After quitting the Congress, Amarinder had floated the PLC in the run-up to the February 20 Punjab Assembly elections. It contested the polls in alliance with the BJP and the SAD (Sanyukt). As per their seat-sharing arrangement, the BJP contested on 65 seats, the PLC on 37 (with a number of candidates preferring to contest on the BJP symbol) and the SAD (Sanyukt) on 15 seats.
All PLC candidates lost badly in the polls, with Amarinder himself forfeiting his security deposit from Patiala, his bastion. The BJP managed to win two seats, while the SAD (Sanyukt), led by former Rajya Sabha member Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, drawing a blank. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) swept the elections, in which the Congress was decimated.
Capt Amarinder has been in the political wilderness since the Punjab elections.
Rating: 5