While the PPCC would be constituted in the next ten days, the DCCs would be allowed to function as such. However, once the PPCC is constituted, special observers would be appointed to review the working of the district units and recommend measures to strengthen them.

These observers would submit their reports to him and also suggest ways and means to revamp the party at the district level, the PPCC chief said, adding that he planned to decentralise authority to the party functionaries and bring in accountability at the same time.

Admitting factionalism within the Congress Party in the state, Amarinder said that he hoped to involve all Congressmen in the fight against the Akali Dal Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party combine to safeguard the interests of the Punjabis in general. He would strive to utilise the experience of senior party leaders in the state, including former chief ministers and ex-PPCC chiefs, as they would be members of the state executive of the party.

Amarinder disclosed that senior party leaders, including former Chief Ministers Harcharan Singh Brar and Rajinder Kaur Bhattal and former PPCC chiefs including Raghunandan Lal Bhatia and Santoklh Singh Randhawa, had assured their full cooperation to him.

The PCC chief plans to galvanise the party by extensively touring the state and mobilising partymen. Party units would be set up at the village level with this end in view. Already, a number of Akalis had sent feelers to him to explore the possibilities of their joining the Congress, he maintained.

Referring to the recent Akal Takht verdict exonerating SGPC chief Gurcharan Singh Tohra in the Nirankari Bhawan case, Amarinder said that he did not favour the demand made in certain quarters for calling a Sarbat Khalsa to review the Takht decision. ``As a true Sikh, I think that calling for a review of the Akal Takht verdict amounted to undermining the authority of the Takht, which was the supreme temporal seat of the Sikhs'', he said.

"I am fully prepared to fight the defamation suit Akali Dal Badal president Parkash Singh Badal had threatened to file against me for making a false complaint against Tohra", he added.

The PPCC chief said that a deputation of the Punjab Congress would soon meet the President and submit a memorandum to him expressing the party's opposition to the transfer of Shaheed Udham Singh Nagar district to the proposed Uttaranchal state.

He made a strong attack on the Akali Dal-BJP Government on the issue of the recent spurt in cases of suicides by farmers because of indebtedness. Though the Johl Committee was appointed in the early eighties when the Akali Government was in power, its recommendations on diversification of crops had not been implemented.