New Delhi, June 30 (IANS) Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu, who has raised the banner of revolt against Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, met former party chief Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday evening soon after meeting party General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.
The meeting lasted for an hour but Sidhu, who had tweeted his photo with Priyanka Gandhi, was tight-lipped about what transpired, and neither did the Congress make an official statement. Sources, however, that a solution is being worked on to defuse the tension between the two factions.
Ahead of the meeting with Sidhu, Rahul Gandhi had met Priyanka Gandhi and party chief Sonia Gandhi.
The cricketer-turned-politician's meeting with Rahul Gandhi came a day after the former party chief had said that no meeting was scheduled between him and Sidhu.
On Tuesday afternoon, Rahul Gandhi stepped outside his house to talk to reporters but when he was asked about meeting Sidhu, he seemed to rule it out. "No meeting," he had said.
Last week, Punjab Congress President Sunil Jakhar, Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal and MPs Pratap Singh Bajwa and Manish Tewari had met Rahul Gandhi and apprised him of the situation after infighting escalated in the state unit.
On Masoodi's query on Farooq Abdullah's house arrest, Singh said: "This is not even house arrest. I would rather say Amit Shah is one of those kind-hearted Home Ministers who has put those people under house arrest in their own houses."
After four months, the authorities on Wednesday decided to restore internet facility on the fixed landline connections in Kashmir, top sources told IANS.
Saying the Sikh community was pained and anguished, the Akali Dal on Tuesday described as "very unfortunate" the statement of Union Home Minister Amit Shah on not commuting the death sentence of Babbar Khalsa terrorist Balwant Singh Rajoana for the assassination of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh.
The state-wide facility will be available on DIAL 100, 112 and 181 through which a woman caller will be immediately connected to the Police Control Room (PCR), it said.
