A majority of Congress MLAs from Punjab who met party vice president Rahul Gandhi threw their weight behind former chief minister Amarinder Singh and sought early revival of the party to successfully take on the Akali-BJP combine in the upcoming assembly elections.

With this exercise, the current leadership row between Singh and Punjab Congress chief Pratap Singh Bajwa is set to be resolved with a new party chief likely to be in place soon.

The party MLAs met Gandhi in two batches of 10 each today and yesterday and put forth their views on resolving the row in the state and revive the party’s prospects.

Amid a raging leadership tussle between Singh and Bajwa, Gandhi had invited party legislators from the state and sought their views. Majority of the MLAs who met Rahul today described Singh as the “tallest” leader of the party in the state, saying he could lead the revival of the party.

There were some dissenting voices too, with one or two MLAs in each batch today asking for the party’s revival by asking the high command to assert itself. They too, however, sought a change of guard in the leadership, saying Bajwa has not been able to take everyone along.

“We appreciate Rahul Gandhi for sparing time to hear our grievances and those of the Congress workers at the grassroots to bring an end to the leadership row and demanded unity in Congress ranks,” said an MLA from Punjab.

Another MLA, however, said, “Barring one or two dissenting voices, a majority of the legislators stood behind Amarinder and described him as the tallest leader of the party.”

With most of the MLAs urging for a strong leadership for the state unit, calls backing Amarinder’s return to the centre stage of Punjab politics were openly made today, sources said.

Gandhi had met a total of 17 MLAs yesterday, including a group of Dalit legislators in two groups. Except Bajwa’s wife Charanjit Kaur Bajwa, most legislators are learnt to have backed the need for leadership change with Amarinder being the front-runner.

The sources said with this consultation process, the Congress leadership may set the ball rolling for a change of guard in its Punjab unit.

While Amarinder is hoping to wrest the control of the state unit, the party high command, the sources say, is also toying with the idea of anointing a third leader acceptable to all to steer the party.

Amarinder may later be given a bigger role ahead of elections, the sources hinted.

The sources said Rahul had invited all the MLAs to help resolve the leadership row and seek their views to revive the Congress after it suffered successive defeats at the hands of the ruling Akali-BJP combine in the last two assembly polls.

The next assembly election is due in Punjab in early 2017 and Congress is seeking to revive its prospects in view of the changing ties between Akali Dal and BJP.

The two allies who share power in Punjab have been at loggerheads over the issue of drugs and BJP under the leadership of its chief Amit Shah has launched an agitation against drugs in the state.

A majority of MLAs demanding a strong leadership for the state unit sought Amarinder’s return to the centre-stage of Punjab politics, the sources said.

Among the dissenting voices are Qadian MLA Charanjeet Kaur Bajwa, Sardulgarh MLA Ajit Inder Singh Mofar, Ludhiana Central and West legislators Surinder Dawar and Bharat Bhushan Ashu, besides Patiala Rural MLA Brahm Mohindra.

While some of them have earlier been Amarinder’s supporters, Mohindra has been a known detractor of the former chief minister.

Amarinder, who defeated senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley from Amritsar, has been at loggerheads with Bajwa. Both Singh and Bajwa had earlier met the Congress top brass.