What could have been a veritable ammunition for the Congress in Punjab, turned into an issue that ended up exposing internal differences in how the Opposition party stands divided in framing its response to politically sensitive developments. As the CBI conducted searches at the Punjab Vigilance Bureau headquarters in Mohali, in connection with a Rs 13-lakh bribery, state Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring chose not to express surprise and instead trained his guns primarily at Union Home Minister Amit Shah and the central government. Describing the CBI action as the “Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)” of the BJP-led Centre, Warring said central agencies first target politicians, then bureaucrats and police officers to send a message: “fall in line and do our bidding, or face the consequences.” He linked the timing of the raid to the approaching Assembly elections in Punjab, terming it “yet another assault on democracy.” While acknowledging that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government under Chief…