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Facing challenge to his leadership, option with CM Capt Amarinder Singh is dissolution of Assembly

 



Congress in Punjab challenges Amarinder’s leadership while farmers confront Sukhbir Badal

Ground Zero

 

Jagtar Singh

The Congress that in 2017 had been given unprecedented mandate by the people under the leadership of Capt Amarinder Singh by delivering the worst ever defeat to the ruling Akali Dal that was in alliance  with the Bharatiya Janata Party, has landed itself in a situation from where there is little chance of its being rescued. Punjab is scheduled to go to the Assembly elections in February 2022.

After the recent replacement of Sunil Jakhar by Cricketer-turned politician Navjot Singh Sidhu as the state Congress president as part of the move to save the sinking party, the next in firing line is Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh who in his previous term had earned the image of being strong, decisive and effective leader but just refused to govern this time and opted to outsource governance. The Congress rank and file got alienated from their own government.

Simply put, the government can’t be run from a farm house. Governance is a broader political process rather than giving some instructions to the bureaucracy.

A section of the ministers and party MLAs today took up the cudgels demanding replacement of Capt Amarinder Singh. No name has been proposed by the pro-changers.

The irony is that the three leaders who had never left Capt Amarinder Singh when he had been side-lined at one stage in his career have now been in the frontline of the attackers. These ministers are Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria and Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa. Also supporting them is Charanjit Singh Channi.

The crisis has precipitated within days of Sidhu having called on Capt Amarinder Singh to take certain decisions to streamline the party functioning.

The situation in the Congress is getting messier  when Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal is on the move as part of his 100-day intensive campaign to galvanise the people for February 2022.

It is a different matter that he is being confronted every day by the angry farmers who have been questioning his party stand after the ordinance was issued implementing the three controversial laws that triggered the farmers struggle.

It is pertinent to mention here that the Badal family had supported the three farm laws aggressively in the beginning saying the same were in the interest of the farmers who were being misled by certain interest groups, including some Naxalites.

Harsimrat Kaur Badal, who was a minister in the cabinet of Narendra Modi when the ordinances were cleared by the government, had given interviews to three different channels on a single day to defend these laws.

The party had not taken official stand on this sensitive issue till then.

Her husband and party chief Sukhbir Singh Badal within less than 24 hours addressed the media at an ‘emergency’ briefing on a single point agenda which was support to the three laws. That was the time when  even a frontal organisation of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh in Punjab and had expressed some reservations. This is part of the record.

A few days later, party patron, 5-time chief minister and Badal family patriarch Parkash Singh Badal too released a video supporting these laws.

The party came out of the alliance on the day these bills were adopted in the Lok Sabha and the farmers agitation had spread by that time. The party should left the government at the very moment the ordinances were issued rather than adopting the strategy to the contrary.

It is in this context that the crisis in the Congress has to be viewed.

The Amarinder government that faced no challenge has been hit hard from within. The party has entered the self-destruction mode.

The present crisis in Punjab is rooted in non-governance of Capt Amarinder Singh and non-performance of the party command that seemed to be coming into action when Sidhu was entrusted with the organisational responsibility. He was an open critic of Capt Amarinder Singh. Interestingly, now his advisors are questioning the personal life of the Chief Minister.

The Congress Circus is getting more and more interesting every day despite being turning muddier.

The Congress high command is now confronted with yet another challenge as Punjab was one state from where it could have entered the revival path at the national level. The party has hit the self-constructed big bump.

The option with Capt Amarinder Singh is to recommend dissolution of the Assembly.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is unlikely to disappoint him in case he exercises this option.

 

 


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