Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Sept 19: Charanjit Singh Channi, a dalit sikh and minister in the outgoing Captain Amarinder Singh cabinet, has emerged the unanimous choice as the leader of the Punjab Congress legislature party to become the first dalit chief minister of the state.
Channi, a dark horse to emerge as the last minute consensus candidate for the top post after the whole of Sunday the name of Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa kept doing rounds as the final choice as the successor of Amarinder Singh.
Most of the Congress leaders hailed Channi’s selection as the best possible choice for the party considering that Punjab where the dalits constitute nearly 33 per cent of the total voters, would send a message to all the north Indian states that the Congress was for the dalits. Channi, a strong critic of the deposed chief minister, is scheduled to meet the governor later Sunday evening to stake his claim for the formation of the next government.
Earlier, unable the party had postponed the legislature party meeting by a few hours because of the keen tussle between various groups over the choice of the chief minister’s name even after another minister in the outgoing cabinet Sukhjinder Randhawa was believed to have emerged the consensus candidate for the top post. Randhawa, however, had said he or his family “never hankers for any post”.
The Congress legislature party was scheduled to meet in Chandigarh at 5 P.M. on Sunday to give its stamp of approval for the name selected as its leader by the party national president Sonia Gandhi but at the last moment the meeting was postponed because she had not been able to finalise a name due to internal bickering within the party.
Initially, the party high command was reportedly in favour of making the former state Congress chief Sunil Jakhar the chief minister, but Randhawa, who reportedly opposed a Hindu named the chief minister favoured Rajya Sabha member Ambica Soni if the high command favoured a Hindu for the post to balance the religious vote bank since the newly-appointed state Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu was a Sikh. But Soni herself opted out of the choice advising the high command to appoint a Sikh for the post apprehending that a Hindu chief minister succeeding Amarinder Singh might alienate Sikh voters from the Congress in the coming elections due in five months.
Amidst various names being considered by the high command, Randhawa, the Jails and Cooperation Minister in the outgoing cabinet, is learnt to have emerged as the frontrunner for the post, the party sources said.
After deferring the CLP meet, the Congress started calling up its MLAs to take their opinions on the matter. “About half-an-hour ago, we started calling up all our MLAs to get a list of probable chief ministers. Let’s see what comes out of it,” a party leader said.
Till the Saturday night, Jakhar’s name was almost finalized by the party leadership but had to hold it back after murmurs of protest during the CLP meet on Saturday. It was learnt that several leaders from Punjab have objected to the choice of a Hindu as the CM’s candidate. They are learnt to have stated that if Congress names a Hindu, Sikhs would be very upset by it. Hectic parleys were on in a local hotel where the central observers were staying. AICC leader Rahul Gandhi also held a meeting late at night in Delhi.
Sources said all the MPs from the state have unitedly conveyed to the leadership that they will not accept Jakhar. They are agreeable to Rajya Sabha MP Partap Singh Bajwa but the leadership fears his equations with PPCC president Navjot Singh Sidhu are not good. “They will end up fighting. It will go back to square one. If Amarinder was removed because the state Congress chief and the chief minister are pulling in different directions, then installing Bajwa would not solve that problem,” a senior leader said. Sidhu too is not in favour of Bajwa.
“A Sikh leader told the observers that if a Hindu is made the CM, the Sikhs would not forgive them as Punjab is the only one state where they can have a chief minister. They even told the party’s high command that if Congress chooses a Hindu leader, then AAP president Arvind Kejriwal would easily become the CM candidate in the next Assembly elections and he would really get a lot of traction,” a source privy to discussions informed.
It is learnt that Rahul Gandhi was supporting Jakhar. “There is a discussion that if Rahul can get Navjot Sidhu as the president of Punjab Congress despite the opposition by former chief minister Amarinder Singh, then he can get anyone as the next CM,” a source said.
Sources said although Sidhu had expressed some apprehensions regarding Jakhar initially, he is now on board with him becoming the new CM. “He will agree with Jakhar if a Hindu is to be named the CM. He will oppose it if the party names a Jat Sikh as a CM other than him,” a source close to Sidhu said.
Party general secretary and Punjab in-charge Harish Rawat and two central observers Harish Chaudhary and Ajay Maken are currently in Chandigarh.
The Congress Veteran, the 79-year old Amarinder Singh resigned as the Punjab chief minister on Saturday after the party high command made it abundantly clear to him that he had lost the support of the majority of the MLAs and had also fallen favour from the party leadership, despite his telling Sonia Gandhi that he felt “humiliated” at the way he was being pushed out and had even threatened to resign from the party. After putting in his papers, Singh launched a no-holds-barred attack against his bête noir Sidhu, describing the cricketer-turned-politician as a “friend of Pakistan” whose elevation would be a “total disaster.”
Hours before Captain Amarinder Singh resigned as the chief minister, he wrote to Sonia Gandhi expressing anguish over the political events of the last 5 months. These events, Amarinder wrote, were clearly “not based on full understanding of the national imperatives of Punjab and its key concerns.”
“Notwithstanding my personal anguish, I hope this will not cause any damage to the hard-earned peace and development in the State, and that the efforts I have been focusing during the last few years, would continue unabated, ensuring justice to one and all,” he wrote.
On Amarinder Singh saying he felt humiliated, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa replied, “So far, the BJP has changed five chief ministers. And in the Congress too, some chief ministers have been changed. In Congress, Amarinder Singh has the maximum tenure of nine-and-half years as chief minister. The honour he got, I think no other chief minister got so much.” To a question over what caused differences with Amarinder Singh, he said, “When we felt that promises which were made… and elections were near and the Congress high-command and we too felt worried”.
Randhawa had earlier this year joined hands with Navjot Singh Sidhu, and had targeted his own government over alleged failure to fulfill the promises made in the run-up to the 2017 polls including those related to the sacrilege incidents (in 2015).
On Capt. Singh’s outbursts against Navjot Singh Sidhu after he resigned as Chief Minister, Randhawa termed it as “unfortunate” that a senior leader had used such words. “I think it is unfortunate that such words have been used against Punjab Congress chief by a senior leader,” he said.
“Even when there were differences with Amarinder Singh since April 26, but you must have never heard me speak any word against him in a disrespectful manner,” said Randhawa.
“Even today, I consider him like a father,” he said. “…Till the time we (Amarinder Singh and Randhawa) were together, you saw that I was very close to him. When he hurt me, then I followed my conscience,” Randhawa said.
