All issues will be resolved, says Charanjit Singh Channi after Navjot Sidhu flags issues in letter to Sonia Gandhi

Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi said the Lakhimpur violence reminded him of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919.

All matters will be resolved and the party's agenda will be fully implemented, Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi said on Monday, a day after the state Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu made public his letter to Sonia Gandhi flagging several issues.

The chief minister made the remark on a day the state Congress chief is learnt to have a second meeting with AICC observer Harish Chaudhary.

Sidhu and Chaudhary had also met the chief minister on Sunday when the meeting was attended, among others, by Sidhu confidante and state minister Pargat Singh.

“Be it a 13-point, 18-point, 21-point or 24-point agenda, we are implementing it in letter and spirit. No point will be left out,” Channi said on Monday when asked about Sidhu's letter to Sonia Gandhi and the action taken on his 13-point agenda.

“If you (reporters) feel there are any differences, I will make him (Navjot Singh Sidhu) sit here in the next meeting,” said Channi, seeking to run down the impression of differences between the two.

“It's alright he (Sidhu) raised the issues and the state party president has the right. We have to implement the party's ideology. The party is supreme. All issues will be resolved,” he said.

Sidhu has sought a meeting with party president Sonia Gandhi, flagging various issues, in a letter, that the government “must deliver upon” and saying it is the poll-bound state's “last chance for resurrection and redemption”.

In the letter to the Congress president on October 15, a day after he had meetings with senior party leaders in Delhi, Sidhu pitched for a “Punjab Model with a 13-Point Agenda to be part of the Congress manifesto for the 2022 Assembly Elections”.

Days after resigning as Punjab Congress chief, Sidhu had on October 15 said his concerns had been resolved and the party asserted that he would continue as the head of the state unit.

Sidhu reminded Sonia Gandhi of the party's 18-point agenda “given to the last chief minister” of Punjab and said they were “equally relevant today”.

He had raised several issues, including justice in the 2015 sacrilege cases, arrest of “big fish” in drug racket, and scrapping power purchase pacts.

Sidhu's letter, which he put in the public domain by posting on Twitter, had indicated that he was still not satisfied with Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi-led government over its handling of key issues which he has been raising in the recent past.

AICC observer Harish Chaudhary and minister Pargat Singh, considered close to Sidhu, were among those present there.

Meanwhile, Sidhu's wife Navjot Kaur Sidhu while talking to reporters in Amritsar on Monday said a discussion on how to scrap power purchase agreements took place while referring to Sidhu's meeting with Channi on Sunday night.

She was replying to a question on reduction in power tariff.

The advocate general and his team are now working on this, she further said.

She called Channi a decent, simple and honest leader.

She also talked about the arrest of “big fish” involved in the drug racket.

Channi became the chief minister after the unceremonious exit of Congress veteran Amarinder Singh, who had been at loggerheads with Sidhu.