Congress’s CM choice could be a double-edged sword in Punjab

The projection of Charanjit Singh Channi as the Congress’s chief ministerial-face is a no-brainer. The explanation for it is simple: the party might not win in his stewardship. But it’ll certainly lose without him at the helm.

The much-awaited announcement Rahul Gandhi promised at a virtual public meeting in Jalandhar last week is expected after February 4, the last date of withdrawal of candidatures for the upcoming February 20 elections. The timing for naming Channi or in the outside chance of another person, notably Punjab Congress president Navjot Sidhu, being made the party mascot may be pushed to the closest possible to the February 20 polling.

That’ll be a replication, in fact, of the 2017 election when Captain Amarinder Singh, who has since floated his own party and tied up with the Bharatiya Janata Party, was anointed the CM candidate in the final phases of the campaign. But the action is delayed this time for different reason. In the previous polls, the Captain was the sole claimant to the top job. That’s not so now.

A blowback from the Sidhu camp to Channi’s designation as the party face looks inevitable, regardless of their publicly made promise to accept the central leadership’s decision. While pledging acquiescence, the former did so with a caveat: that he not be reduced to a “darshani ghoda (show horse)” without power.

Of nagging worry for party insiders are Sidhu’s mercurial ways and his persistence as a parallel centre of power, both in ticket distribution and formulation of the party manifesto he flaunts as his “Punjab model” for governance. It’s hard to miss his discomfiture over losing the stop-gap captaincy to Channi after getting the Captain ousted as CM.

The big question that haunts the Congress is whether the cricketer-turned-politician will have the maturity to come to terms with the party overlooking his claim to build on its boast of having given the state its first Dalit CM? By the state leadership’s current reckoning, the Congress’s tally in the face of a seemingly ascendant Aam Adami Party (AAP) is nowhere near the 77 seats it has in the outgoing assembly.

“Sidelining Channi will be suicidal at this juncture. He’s the only force multiplier we have,” said a Congress candidate in Majha, a region where Sidhu and Amarinder Singh held sway in 2017. The across-the-board power tariff cuts he has announced besides other sops have gladdened most sections barring the high-end consumers.

An advance indicator of the party high command’s prospective CM choice is its decision to field Channi from two constituencies: his traditional seat of Chamkaur Sahib bordering Doab and Bhadaur in Malwa where the AAP has formidable influence. Sidhu, in contrast, will be tied down to Amritsar (East), what with his Shiromani Akali Dal bête noire, Bikram Majithia, having taken up his challenge to give up his Majitha seat in favour of his wife Genieve Kaur, to set up a direct face-off in the Congress leader’s citadel.

If Sidhu isn’t named the CM face, some among his frontline supporters might shift allegiance to Majithia, said an Amritsar-based Congressman. On the positive site, he foresaw the SAD leader’s strong-arm image drawing a larger chunk of the Hindu vote towards Sidhu in what’ll be a keenly watched contest.

While Channi’s public profile has taken a beating after the Enforcement Directorate raids on a relative charged with mining malfeasance, Sidhu shines and is a good match for the AAP’s Bhagwant Mann in terms of personal probity. But politics has to it many other facets, social identity being the most crucial of them all.

In a race crowded by Jat Sikhs, including Mann, Sidhu, the Captain, and the SAD’s Sukhbir Badal, Channi is the only CM aspirant with whom Punjab’s 32% Scheduled Caste are expected to relate. That’s the USP he claims, the test of which will be when votes are counted on March 10.

Beyond the media focus on the Channi-Sidhu power-duel, dozens of internecine bushfires, if not doused immediately, could as much gut the Congress’s poll prospects. There’s anti-incumbency against its legislators seeking fresh mandate and those left out are in the fray as independents or on other party tickets.

The real-time prognosis for the party appears dim. One can disagree on many counts with Sidhu but he’s right when he says that in Punjab, the Congress alone can defeat itself.