The blast at a court complex in Ludhiana and the recent incidents of lynching in Amritsar and Kapurthala over attempted sacrilege figured in a meeting of Congress members of Parliament from Punjab with party president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday.
The failure to condemn the lynching incidents by the Chief Minister, State Home Minister or any of top party functionaries was also noted at the meeting, said sources. The need to maintain communal peace in the border State given its history of militancy was stressed upon by the MPs.
The meeting with Ms. Gandhi was a follow-up of Punjab MPs meeting her in Parliament on the last day of the winter session.
Patiala MP and wife of former chief minister Captain (retd.)Amarinder Singh, Preneet Kaur, was not present at Thursday's meeting even though she was part of the group that met Ms. Gandhi in Parliament.
Though security and law and order issues dominated the discussion, governance challenges, electoral strategy and Congress' vision for the upcoming Assembly elections in the State were also discussed.
The need to have better coordination between the government and the party was also discussed but none of the MPs directly referred to Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee chief Navjot Singh Sidhu's public statements that were often at variance with his own government.
The meeting also comes ahead of a proposed meeting of the Screening Committee of the party where probable candidates for the Assembly elections would be shortlisted.
