Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann dares Congress leader to break alliance with AAP

Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Punjab Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party leader Bhagwant Mann on Monday (March 4) launched an impassioned verbal offensive against its Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance(I.N.D.I.A.) partner Congress party to slam the country's oldest political party's purported lack of leadership.

The sharp optics from the Punjab Legislative Assembly are set to raise Mann's profile in Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party as he continues to lead a bigger and much more electorally important state under the banner of AAP.

Congress and Aam Aadmi Party have allied for Delhi's 7, Haryana's 10, Goa's 2, and Gujarat's 26 Lok Sabha constituencies respectively. Even for the Chandigarh Lok Sabha constituency, the AAP and Congress will contest in alliance.

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But in Punjab, the AAP will contest all 13 Lok Sabha constituencies by itself and its candidates will consequently clash with Congress party candidates during General Elections later this summer.

Bhagwant Mann's 'lock and key' politics

Right before the discussion on Punjab's state budget during a session of the legislative assembly in Chandigarh, CM Mann handed over an envelope with a lock and key to the Governor and consequently asked him to lock the opposition inside the assembly, so that they could not "run away" from the discussions.

This triggered a heated exchange of words and a sharp show of optics between CM Mann and the Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa.

The Congress is the principal opposition party in Punjab where Aam Aadmi Party is in power.

Bhagwant Mann's dare to Congress

An agitated CM Bhagwant Mann dared Punjab Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa to tell the Congress party's central leadership not to leave the constituencies for AAP in Haryana's Kurukshetra, as well as in Delhi and Gujarat.

"Who does Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi sit with? With me?" Mann asked while pointing to Bajwa.

"Have you ever sat with them?" Mann asked in a sharp attack against the Congress party's central leadership.

"On the one hand, you are making agreements (on seat sharing) with us. Go and tell them (Sonia and Rahul Gandhi) not to give Kurukshetra, Delhi and Gujarat (Lok Sabha) seats to us," Mann said.

Punjab's Leader of OppositionPartap Singh Bajwa, while speaking to the reporters, said, "The Chief Minister said that the Congress does not know how to listen hence the doors of the Assembly should be locked from inside... Are we labourers? We have not seen such a weak Speaker... The CM used inappropriate words for everyone."

"When the heated argument was going on, the Chief Minister asked me if I would contest against him in the elections. I told him that from wherever he will contest from Punjab, I will stand against him. I have accepted his challenge openly," he added.

(With inputs from agencies)