CHANDIGARH: Amid the power struggle in Goa and Manipur, almost all top guns of the Congress party are expected to attend Captain Amarinder Singh's oath-taking ceremony at the Punjab Raj Bhawan in Chandigarh on Thursday.
The chief minister-designate has chosen 10.16am as the time for taking the oath as it is considered auspicious. At the top of the list is party vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who confirmed his presence for the event.
Former PM Manmohan Singh has been invited, but has not confirmed whether he will attend. Amarinder has invited 49 top leaders of the party, including former Union ministers of UPA-1 and UPA-2 and leaders who were once part of coalition governments with the Congress.
Outgoing Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav was also invited, but he sent former Akali MP and former UP minister Balwant Singh Ramoowalia as his representative. Ramoowalia had switched to Samajwadi Party in 2015 after rebelling against outgoing Punjab deputy CM Sukhbir Badal.
The list also includes Amarinder's friends P Chidambaram, Veerappa Moily, Salman Khurshid, Renuka Choudhary, Milind Deora, Sachin Pilot and R P N Singh. Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh, whose daughter is married to Amarinder's grandson Angad, is also expected to attend the ceremony.
There will be some royal flavor too at the ceremony with scions of the erstwhile royal families of Jammu and Kashmir and Tripura - Karan Singh and Deb Barman - coming to Chandigarh for the event.
Amarinder had also invited National Conference leaders, the father-son duo of Farooq Abdullahand Omar Abdullah, but both tweeted their unavailability and wished Amarinder good luck for his second innings as chief minister of Punjab.
Three former chief ministers of the Congress - Digvijaya Singh, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Moti Lal Vora - have confirmed their participation for the oath-taking ceremony. Congress has already announced an eight-minister cabinet, including former cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu who joined the party a fortnight before voting day and Manpreet Badal.
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