Congress in Punjab working overtime to reduce its tally from 77 to 17 Assembly seats in February 2022

 

Congress in Punjab working overtime to decimate itself in February 2022

Ground Zero

 

Jagtar Singh 

The Congress in Punjab seems to be determined to reduce its tally of 77+3 Assembly seats to 17 in February 2022.

The expertise of party’s central leadership by way of mishandling the mess in one state after another has further proved to be the catalyst.

The issue is just not the infighting that used to be the hallmark of the Akalis so long as the Sikh religio-political matrix was characterised by multiple power centres. The situation changed once this domain turned unipolar after the demise of Jathedar Gurcharan Singh Tohra in 2003 who lorded over the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee for more than a quarter of a century.

Punjab, the state that had the potential to trigger the revival of the decaying party at the national level by winning 77 out of 117 seats in February 2017 elections, the highest ever barring 1992 when the mainstream Akalis had boycotted the polls, is already collapsing from the heavy weight of that mandate. The factors leading to this disaster in the making are subjective and not objective.

Ironically, the party was on winning spree till 2019 Lok Sabha elections for multiple reasons beginning with covert understanding between Capt Amarinder Singh and BJP strongman Amit Shah in the run up to 2017 polls.

The party hit the bump suddenly.

Now the two factions in the party are resolved to fight to the finish before taking on the Shiromani Akali Dal and the Aam Aadmi  Party few months later in February 2022. These two adversaries are already in the field and fine-tuning their competing strategies to wrest power from the Congress.

The defeat of the Congress in Punjab would be the last nail in the coffin of this oldest party in the country.

At the time when the situation seemed to be returning to normal after the appointment of mercurial Navjot Singh Sidhu who entered active political life from the BJP gate to reach the Congress as its chief in Punjab, the party was hit by yet another strong tremor as opponents of Capt Amarinder Singh staged open revolt demanding his removal repeating he would not deliver deliberately as he continued to be hand in glove with Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal, the charge that Sidhu had levelled in the run up to last Lok Sabha polls.

Sidhu after taking over as the PPCC chief  had been talking of revoking the one-sided power purchase agreements signed during Badal government in next session of Assembly. The cabinet yesterday decided to convene just one day session and that too to celebrate 400^th birth anniversary of the Ninth Sikh Guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur, who sacrificed his rights for human rights and religious freedom.

The state government has not even brought out the promised white paper on these agreements and the reasons are now too well known.

The Amarinder camp last night organised a diner for MLAs and MPs to demonstrate its strength.

Earlier, the party waded into unsolicited unsavoury controversy over the social media posts of Sidhu’s advisers, one of whom today declined the nomination. But the controversy has already contributed to the mess.

A highly provoked Sidhu today hit back, not at the Akali Dal or the AAP, but at his own central leadership threatening with decimation in case he was not given unbridled powers to run the affairs while at the same time holding out the promise that following his strategy, the Congress could rule in Punjab for 20 years. (Itt naal itt Khadka dianga). Such threat to the central leadership by any state chief has never been heard earlier.

Of course, the world is changing very fast and the present generation has its own style and values. Sidhu has introduced new culture and idiom.

Interestingly, while interacting with the industrialists at Amritsar, Sidhu gave assurance, not promise, at very personal level and not the government, thereby projecting himself as the chief ministerial face of the party.

The basic issue is that of the party seeming to be determined to commit harikari rather than projecting a united face to defend the citadel from the Akali Dal and the AAP. Presently, the party looks to be too keen to pave the way for political adversaries.

Time is already running out.

Punjab needs people with new ideas and new political culture.

Of course, Navjot Singh Sidhu is perceived to be leader with clean image and this trait is now a rarity but more needs to be done and pitfalls avoided.