Chandigarh: Congress MLA Sangat Singh Gilzian today resigned from AICC and as vice
president of Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee after learning that he
had not been included in the expanded state Cabinet.
I have
resigned from the membership of AICC and as vice president of PPCC,
Gilzian told PTI, hours after Chief Minister Amarinder Singh announced
the induction of nine new minister in his Cabinet.
Gilzian, who
represents Urmar seat in Hoshiarpur and was a member of All India
Congress Committee, accused the party of ignoring the backward classes
in the Cabinet expansion.
I have been representing my
constituency for a long time. I fought elections four times and won
assembly polls three times -- in 2007, 2012 and 2017," he said.
The backward classes MLA said he was a senior legislator from the Doaba region.
"What
to talk of inducting me in the Cabinet, even my junior was not
inducted. Backward classes have 27 per cent of the votes in Punjab and
not even a single MLA representing them was made a minister," he said.
"They have ignored the backward class," he added.
Now I do not have any right to hold positions in the party. I will continue to serve my people as an MLA, he said.
Gilzian, who was earlier considered a frontrunner for a ministerial
berth, claimed that his name was dropped at the last moment.
The names of ministers to be inducted in the first expansion of the
state's Congress government were finalised today at a meeting between
Amarinder Singh and Congress president Rahul Gandhi in Delhi.
Gilzian said he would not raise the matter with the Chief Minister.
The new Cabinet ministers are set to take oath tomorrow.
Youth leader and former Sangrur MP Vijay Inder Singla, Mohali's
three-time MLA Balbir Sidhu and former Amritsar mayor and five-time MLA O
P Soni are among the legislators who will get ministerial berths.
The other new ministers are Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Sukhbinder Singh
Sarkaria, Bharat Bhushan Ashu, Shyam Sunder Arora, Rana Gurmit Singh
Sodhi and Gurpreet Singh Kangar.
Earlier, the Chief Minister said seniority was the key criterion for picking the new members of his cabinet.
PTI
