Why was Alok Sharma stripped off AICC secretary's post?

New Delhi: The sudden announcement of axing articulate media panelist Alok Sharma as an All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary took many people, including party leaders and workers, by surprise.

The announcement coincided with the conclusion of the two-day AICC session at Ahmedabad in Gujarat on Thursday.

Sharma was the AICC secretary in-charge of Punjab.

What prompted the leadership to remove him?

There are a few rumours in circulation in Punjab regarding his removal.

One such rumour is that  Sharma had misbehaved with three-time Lok Sabha member Sher Singh Ghubaya at the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) office in Chandigarh. A peeved Ghubaya shot off a strongly worded letter to the Congress high command, complaining about Sharma's arrogant behaviour and demanding strict action against him.

Ghubaya is a Rai Sikh. Rai Sikhs are Dalit Sikhs with sizeable presence in Ferozepur, Jalandhar, Kapurthala and Ludhiana districts.

Ghubaya won the 2009 and 2014 Lok Sabha elections on a Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) ticket. In 2019, he joined the Congress and unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha polls as a Congress candidate against Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress fielded Ghubaya from Ferozepur. He won the seat.

The other rumour is that Sharma was trying to create a parallel leadership in Punjab by promoting a prominent Congress leader from Doaba, thus antagonising both state unit chief Raja Amarinder Singh Brar (Warring) and leader of the opposition in the Punjab assembly, Partap Singh Bajwa.

Sharma had promised the leader that he would try to influence the leadership to accept him as a viable option and an acceptable face for the chief minister's post in the 2027 assembly elections.

Bajwa had sought the leadership's intervention in checking dissidence in the state unit and demanded immediate shifting of Sharma out of Punjab. The Congress high command is said to have promptly obliged Bajwa.

That said, it is difficult to ascertain which of the two rumours resulted in Sharma's unceremonious removal from his post. The only saving grace for him is that he will continue to represent the Congress on TV debates, a task that gave him recognition in the party and outside.