Captain Amarinder holds big meeting with Amit Shah in Delhi; PLC-BJP merger on the cards

Former Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh met Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday amid speculation over a merger with the BJP. 

As per sources, both the leaders might discuss the merger of Singh's newly-formed Punjab Lok Congress (PLC) with the saffron party and future possible seat-sharing against the backdrop of the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections. In the past few days, Captain has been camping in Delhi where he had back-to-back meetings with BJP's top leadership. Earlier, the former Punjab CM also held a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president JP Nadda.

Amarinder Singh had served as Punjab's Chief Minister for over nine years including 2002–2007 and then 2017-2021. In September last year, he had unceremoniously resigned from the Congress and later floated his PLC and then constituted an alliance with the BJP that had SAD (Sanyukt) as its ally. The alliance, however, didn't fare well in the polls as the AAP stormed to power.

 Amarinder Singh quits Congress, floats his own party

Amid the infighting between Amarinder Singh and Navjot Singh Sidhu, the situation escalated after Congress summoned a Legislative Party meeting on September 18, 2021, without keeping the Punjab CM in the loop. In the midst of growing speculation that Singh would be ousted, the latter tendered his resignation to Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit on the same day owing to "humiliation", issuing a number of statements and speaking to Republic about how he had been undermined despite having steered the Congress party through several unlikely comebacks in Punjab. In November 2021, Captain announced his own party Punjab Lok Congress (PLC) which was approved by the Election Commission of India. 

(Image: PTI)