Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Sept 25: The Congress is learnt to have finalized the list of the ministers for the Punjab cabinet under the chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi but it has not yet been made public pending final approval by the party national president Sonia Gandhi.
The party sources, however, said decision had been taken to drop five ministers from the previous Amarinder Singh ministry while retaining eight others and inducting seven new faces in the Channi cabinet.
On his return to Chandigarh from Delhi after finalizing his cabinet, Channi called on the governor Banwarilal Purohit and fixed swearing-in of his 15 new cabinet members at 4.30 P.M. on Sunday, official sources said.
The party sources said the state Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu prevailed over in the selection of most of the ministers though he was not present at all the meetings Channi held with the high command leaders. The list was reportedly finalized following a meeting with AICC leader Rahul Gandhi that continued past Friday midnight. Sources said that party has been able to reach a consensus on inducting seven MLAs and dropping five from former chief minister Amarinder Singh’s cabinet.
In the meeting, where Congress leaders KC Venugopal, Harish Rawat, Harish Chaudhary and Ajay Maken were also present, the party reached a consensus on dropping former Health Minister Balbir Sidhu, Revenue Minister Gurpreet Singh Kangar, Industries Minister Sunder Sham Arora, Social Welfare Minister Sadhu Singh Dharamsot and Sports Minister Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi.
The meeting also reached a consensus on re-inducting former Irrigation Minister Rana Gurjit Singh. He was earlier a minister in Amarinder’s Cabinet but had stepped down after an alleged scam in allotment of sand mines to his ex-employees.
Others who were finalised last night include PPCC general secretary in-charge Pargat Singh, PPCC Working President, Kuljit Nagra and Gidderbaha MLA Amrinder Singh Raja Warring. They are Sidhu’s choices. Sidhu pushed for them even as Channi was learnt to be opposing the induction of Pargat and Nagra on the plea that they were holding important positions in party organisation and they would not be able to do justice if they are given more responsibility.
Former Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal was also opposing Warring tooth and nail. But Sidhu is learnt to have had his way. Sources said other new faces on which the party leaders reached a consensus included Dr Raj Kumar Verka, PPCC working president Sangat Singh Gilzian and Gurkirat Kotli.
The party has for now decided to retain Brahm Mohindra, Manpreet Badal, Sukhbinder Sarkaria, Tripat Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Vijay Inder Singla, Aruna Chaudhary, Razia Sultana and Bharat Bhushan Ashu. The portfolios of these ministers are likely to remain unchanged.
Though the Congress did not go to the extent of the BJP did in Gujarat by pushing for a totally clean slate packing back home all the ministers along with the chief minister, the party high command is believed to have taken a daring step in unseating Captain Amarinder Singh and dropping five of his senior ministers to balance he caste factor in the state. But political observers doubt that by denying the chief minister’s post to a Hindu and inducting for the first time a Dalit Sikh in Channi for the top post, the Congress may not be able to retain its traditional support base of Hindus who constitute about 38 per cent of the total voters in Punjab as against 32 per cent of the Dalits and 25 per cent of Jat Sikhs. Incidentally, all the chief ministers Punjab has thrown up so far from different parties, all were Jat Sikhs despite being in the minority. Even this time, the choice of Ambika Soni or Sunil Jakhar as the chief minister was stalled at the last moment with Soni telling the high command that Punjab should have a Sikh at the helm of affairs.
In the run-up to the 2017 Assembly elections in Punjab, an opinion poll on the suitability of AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal as Chief Minister threw up an interesting finding. The majority respondents rejected the idea for just one reason: He was not a Punjabi. His religion, they made it clear, was inconsequential. Most of the Punjab experts believe that the state never voted on the caste or religious grounds giving multiple examples of a Hindu candidate winning from Sikh-majority constituencies and a Sikh from areas having majority of Hindu votes.
“It’s a political move to anoint a Dalit Sikh as the chief minister to deflect attention from the ruling party’s failures. Yes, caste matters but we are not UP or Bihar. When it comes to polls, the lines tend to get blurred,” a senior Punjab Congress leader said.
Traditionally, Punjab politics has been dominated by Jat Sikhs who may be numerically small in number but own over 90 per cent of the landholding in the state. Since 1966, when Punjab was carved out, all the CMs of the state have been Jat Sikhs except for Giani Zail Singh.
For once, arch rivals Shiromani Akali Dal and Congress are on the same page. “We have fielded an SC candidate from Jalandhar Central for 2022 even though it’s not a reserved seat. There is no strict division of votes along the lines of caste even in panchayat and civic body elections. Since the reserved seats are very fluid, candidates are forced to muster the support of all communities,’’ a senior Akali leader said. Congressmen admit the situation needed deft handling to maintain the fine balance and prevent polarization of votes on castiest or religious lines.
Sunil Jakhar warned that if handled in an inept or biased manner, the prevailing brotherhood and amity in the state, which has been its hallmark even in very testing times, could turn out to be fragile. “And it could shatter just as easily as a glass house,’’ he says.
Sociologists say Punjabis are united by their homogeneous culture, a melting pot for unique identities. “Despite militancy, the state has never seen communal riots. Reductive though it may sound, this is also a reason why it has resisted the nationalistic Hindutva agenda, and the Bhindranwale brand of Sikhism too could not last here for very long,’’ a Punjab expert said.
