Skip to main content

Opposition to Capt Amarinder Singh is not from Akali Dal or AAP but from within Congress



Informal formation within Congress emerges to occupy Opposition space in Punjab

Punjab is witnessing an interesting and unprecedented phenomenon in its political spectrum.
With  Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and House of Badals  perceived to be in collusion and the Aam Aadmi Party having disintegrated with remnants miserably failing to perform, a new informal formation is emerging to occupy the space of effective Opposition in Punjab’s political matrix. It is within the ruling Congress in the state.
A visit to Badal village is enough to re-inforce the perception of this place being the sub-capital of Punjab. It is a different matter that Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal has his residence about 500 meters from the sub-capital but he has already protested against his functional status in the area of not being more than a municipal councillor.
A group of Congress MLAs led by a section of ministers has made it known to Capt Amarinder Singh  unambiguously that with this perception persisting, the Congress is doomed in the state. At stake is the political future of these young and some not so young MLAs and ministers.
Capt Amarinder Singh at one stage had given the impression that he had dealt a severe blow to House of Badals at the political level following the release of Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report on sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib. The investigation is not moving further. Moreover, the state government flip-flopped on the issue of CBI filing closure report in the cases relating to this narrative that this agency was probing. The CBI filed the closure report despite the fact that the probe had been withdrawn from it by the state government following a resolution adopted in the state Assembly following 7-hour marathon debate on Ranjit Singh Commission report.
The special investigating team that was constituted by the state government stands publicly divided with one section in Chief Minister’s Office backing the split.
This government all this time after coming into power in March 2017 has failed to even introduce a new time-table for buses in the state. The existing time-table favours buses of the House of Badals. Ironically, the damage to the Badals at the political level from these buses is much more than the pecuniary gain. This is one issue on which the members of this informal formation are highly agitated.
It is said the people manning the Badal transport are more powerful than the state transport department officials.
With Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal informally sharing the perks of power, the Akali Dal is not just picking up. This is the worry of the senior Akali Dal leaders. Earlier, it was being felt that the Akali Dal might be on the revival path with both Sukhbir and his wife Harsimrat Kaur winning the Lok Sabha election. They are the only two from Akali Dal who won but the situation has not changed at the grassroots.  That is not happening.
Nothing much has changed under Amarinder government as people continue to die due to drugs and farmers continue to commit suicide. Drugs are as freely available as during Badal government. The postings and transfers of officials in districts like Bathinda and Muktsar are virtually dictated by Badals, or at least this is the perception.
This perception is reinforced by rush of the people at the fortress-like residence of the Badals to get their work done is and not at the house of Manpreet Singh Badal.
Would the BJP jump in  to take the risk after breaking its alliance with the Akali Dal?
Under the changing political narrative in the country after Jammu and Kashmir, nothing can be ruled out. The Congress under the prevailing situation won’t be able to stop BJP take-over   of Punjab in 2022.
Rather a section both from the Akali Dal and the Congress might be tempted to shift.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sinister and deep design to divide Sikhs and Hindus in Canada needs to be exposed

  Sinister and deep design to divide Sikhs and Hindus in Canada needs to be exposed Ground Zero Jagtar Singh Chandigarh: Let us decode deeper design in what apparently seems to be deliberate distortion of facts in case of the so-called Sikh-Hindu clash in Canada to project it as confrontation between the two communities. The Indian media and the establishment gave it out as a communal conflict and attack on a Mandir, the Hindu place of worship. Let us first put the matter straight from the evidence available in the form of videos relating to every dimension of this narrative and the statements. It was neither a Sikh-Hindu clash nor an attack on the Hindu temple per se. It was a protest by the SFJ activists against the Indian consulate organizing a camp there. Such protests have been held against the consulate outside the gurdwaras too as per the record. The saner statement issued by the Hindu Federation of November 4 is very important in the interpretation of this narra...
Post a Comment
Read more

History seems to be ominously repeating itself to drive Punjab into religio-political minefield again

  History ominously repeating itself to drive Punjab into religio-political minefield again Ground Zero Jagtar Singh This headline is not rooted in some sort of pessimism. The signals are loud and clear. The onus to counter such signals is on the Punjab government. History in Punjab seems to be repeating itself to push Punjab into yet another cycle of what can be termed as the avoidable toxic situation. That cycle has now impacted even geo-political relations of India with some countries, especially Canada where the Sikhs are settled in sizeable numbers. In the context of the Sikhs as a globalized people, it is pertinent to mention that even in United Kingdom House of Commons, the representation of the Sikhs is now in double digit after the recent elections. Punjab is still impacted by the tremors of religio-political   dynamics that got triggered in 1978 with the Sikh-Nirankari clash on the Baisakhi on April 13 at Amritsar, the religious capital of the Sikhs. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Two binaries emerging in Punjab’s multi-polar polls where last 72 hours are always crucial

  Two binaries emerging in Punjab’s multi-polar polls where last 72 hours are always crucial   Ground Zero Jagtar Singh Chandigarh, May 28: The inter-play of socio-political forces in Punjab in the run up to the June 1 Lok Sabha elections is unprecedented. This is besides that established fact that the religio-political dynamics of this state has always been different from the rest of India, even when the boundaries of this country touched the Khyber Pass connecting with Afghanistan. It is for the first time that so many main political players are in the fray independently thereby making the contest multi-polar. Then there are two other eruptions in the electoral matrix making the multi-polar contest all the more interesting, and also important for future dynamics of not only Punjab but also India as the roots of this phenomena are not in too distant a past but in not so recent period of militancy. It is after decades that Punjab is going to the polls without a...
Post a Comment
Read more