Janjivan Bureau / New Delhi : The disciplinary committee of the Congress on Tuesday met and recommended a suspension of two years each for former Punjab Congress President Sunil Jakhar and former union food minister KV Thomas for anti party activities.
The final call on the panel’s recommendations will be taken by party chief Sonia Gandhi.
The panel headed by former defence minister AK Antony has sent its recommendations to Gandhi.
Jakhar is facing disciplinary action for failing to reply to the January 11 show cause notice served on him by the Antony-led committee.
The panel had given Jakhar a week’s time to respond.
The committee had earlier served show cause notices on Jakhar and Thomas. Thomas had responded, but the reply was not found to be satisfactory, panel member Tariq Anwar said.
“We had served show cause notices on both the leaders and sought a reply within a week, but we never received Sunil Jakhar’s reply. The disciplinary committee met today and recommended a two year suspension for the two leaders,” Anwar said today.
Jakhar for his part said the committee was free to take any action it deemed fit.
Jakhar was in the dock for his remarks on Punjab election eve that “he got the maximum 42 MLA votes in the race for Punjab chief minister-ship after Amarinder Singh was removed, Sukhjinder Randhawa got 16, Charanjit Singh Channi, the Congress’ pick for the post two votes, Navjot Sidhu six and Preneet Kaur 12.”
After the Congress party’s poll debacle in Punjab, Jakhar also went on to describe then CM Channi as a liability for the Congress in Punjab.
KV Thomas was showcaused for attending a conference called by the CPM, Congress’s principal rival in Kerala, despite party chief Sonia Gandhi instructing state leaders not to go against the state unit line on the matter. Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor, who also had the invite to the same event on April 9, dropped out after Sonia’s nudge, but Thomas went ahead.