New Delhi: The Congress on Friday appointed former Indian hockey captain Pargat Singh the president of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee after Amarinder Singh Raja Warring resigned from the post.
Warring had earlier in the day met party leader Rahul Gandhi and formally submitted his resignation. He called his departure a victory for former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi.
Warring said he learnt that recently appointed AICC general secretary in-charge of Punjab, Sachin Pilot, may have been behind his ouster; however, he voluntarily relinquished his charge.
Other highlights include a bronze medal with the Indian team at the 1986 Asian Games in Seoul and a silver at the 1990 Asian Games in Beijing. He received the Arjuna Award in 1989 and the Padma Shri in 1998. After his playing career, he coached the men’s national team and later held roles in hockey administration in Punjab, including as general secretary of Hockey Punjab (2017).
Pargat served in the Punjab Police and rose to the rank of Superintendent of Police (SP) before leaving the service and entering electoral politics in 2012 after winning Jalandhar Cantonment on a Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) ticket and defeating Congress’s Jagbir Singh Brar. In July 2016, the SAD suspended him and he shortly quit the party, accusing Sukhbir Badal of betraying the trust of the voters.
He then joined Navjot Singh Sidhu and the Bains brothers in the short-lived Awaaz-e-Punjab front, which presented itself as opposing forces they deemed harmful to Punjab’s interests. He later joined the Indian National Congress and won the same seat again in 2017.
Under Channi, he was a Cabinet Minister from September 26, 2021, to March 11 2022, holding the School Education, Higher Education, Sports and Youth Affairs, and NRI Affairs portfolios.
In the 2022 Assembly elections, when the AAP received a huge mandate, he retained Jalandhar Cantonment for Congress, defeating fellow former hockey international Surinder Singh Sodhi by around 5,800 votes.
