The meeting was convened at the residence of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, where former party chief Rahul Gandhi and AICC general secretary KC Venugopal were present.A meeting of the Congress’ central leadership with party’s Punjab unit to discuss the strategy ahead of 2027 Assembly elections in the border state saw stormy scenes with verbal duels, charges and counter charges taking place.The meeting was convened at the residence of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, where former party chief Rahul Gandhi and AICC general secretary K C Venugopal were present.The meeting took place in the backdrop of the urban local body poll results in Punjab where Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won 954 of the total 1,977 wards, and the Congress came in a distant second by winning 393 wards. The results deepened the faultlines within the Congress and gave ammunition to former chief minister and Jalandhar MP Charanjit Singh Channi. While Congress emerged victorious in Channi’s two spheres of influence — Chamkaur Sahib and Morinda — it suffered a drubbing in Gidderbaha, considered a bastion of state party chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, with AAP winning 17 out of 19 municipal council wards.It is learnt that Channi raised the question of poor performance of Congress in Gidderbaha. He is reported to have asked how the party would prepare for the Assembly polls when the home constituency of the state president itself was swept by AAP.Sources, privy to the developments, said that Warring took the line that the ruling party misused the official state machinery to secure a victory and that this is common in local bodies polls. To this, another senior leader, identified by some as Gurdaspur MP Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, is alleged to have asked why the effects of misuse of official machinery were not visible in Kapurthala or Chamkaur Sahib where Congress has won convincingly.Warring, Channi and Randhawa did not respond to phone calls or messages seeking their response to the comments attributed to them by the Congress sources.Further, Warring is learnt to have raised the absence of Channi from Punjab for a prolonged period of time while the process of local bodies polls was on and his failure to campaign. To this, Channi is reported to have said that he had some pressing personal reasons for which he had to go abroad.Story continues below this adIt is also learnt that Leader of Opposition in Punjab Vidhan Sabha, Partap Singh Bajwa, left the meeting midway. Congress general secretary in charge of Punjab, Bhupesh Baghel, told media persons later that Bajwa has informed them that he had to leave early and he urged the media not to make a mountain out of a molehill.Baghel also told journalists that no change in Congress leadership in Punjab was envisaged at present. He further added that as far as the local bodies poll results were concerned, these were often won by political party in power.“Extensive discussions took place on the party’s strategy and how we should reach out to the people of Punjab. The Assembly elections in Punjab are to be held soon, with only a few months,” Baghel said, adding Punjab is a very important state for the Congress as well as the country, and the party would “very soon” prepare an action plan and hit the streets.“We have to move forward unitedly in Punjab and highlight the corruption and deteriorating law and order situation in the state under Bhagwant Mann, besides highlighting the attitude of the central government due to which Punjab is suffering. We will take all these issues before the public,” the former Chhattisgarh chief minister said.