Let’s keep everyone happy. This seemed to be the underlying message of the first Congress list of 86 candidates declared for Punjab on Saturday. Being publicly abrasive for state chief Navjot Singh Sidhu or seen loyal to former chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh or facing a corruption charge — nothing seemed to have mattered.
It is not as if things are rosier in the camp of the other leading contender in Punjab — the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Here, over 50 seats have been given to leaders who joined the AAP from other parties, sparking a mini-rebellion of sorts in the ranks, but AAP seems focussed on winnability rather than just pure loyalty. The party also fears the two farmer political outfits eating into its votes. AAP’s chief ministerial face could finally surface this week after a referendum. In the Congress camp though, no CM face is expected to be declared.
Increasingly, Punjab seems a direct contest between the ruling Congress and the main challenger, AAP. The Congress list of candidates leaves little to imagination that the party’s high command has decided to ebb the bitter fight in its ranks by giving tickets to all factions.
No chief ministerial face may be declared, though there are claimants officially through public statements now in sitting Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and party’s state chief Navjot Singh Sidhu — both have projected their own ‘Punjab Model’ for the next five years.
Sample the Congress candidate list. Channi, Sidhu and former state party chief Partap Singh Bajwa are all candidates from their traditional seats.
But it is not so that those averse to Sidhu haven’t got tickets. Minister Rana Gurjeet Singh, who publicly took on Sidhu and called him a “political mercenary” and “unstable and eccentric”, has got a ticket. So have at least five loyalists of former CM Captain Amarinder Singh like Sadhu Singh Dharamsot who was removed as minister after Channi took over and also faces allegations in a scholarship scam.
Sukhpal Khaira, who Captain brought from the AAP to the Congress, is in Patiala jail in a money laundering case but he has got a ticket too.
It is this approach of placating all and ensuring that there is no exodus to the Captain camp that is expected to stop the Congress from also going into the election with a declared CM face.
Sidhu took a cue to say he was not fighting for any post. The party is already on the back-foot as it could not act against the Badals in the sacrilege cases over five years and its move to book Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia in the drugs case also did not yield much results as the latter got anticipatory bail.
Sidhu, the champion of both causes, has not missed out the chance of putting CM Channi in the dock, saying the Guru (god) did not get justice and the drug traffickers were not punished in five years.
With inputs from News18