Cong’s CM face: Channi ahead of Sidhu?

Congress claims that it has deployed more than 250 social media warriors to assess from party workers and the general population in Punjab, as to whether it should project present chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi or the state party president Navjot Singh Sidhu as its chief ministerial face for the assembly elections scheduled for February 20.

At a time when the aging party is desperately in need of dynamic new leaders and a fresh approach to revive itself, what it does in Punjab shall be keenly watched. Sonia Gandhi did manage to pull a rabbit from her hat when she appointed Channi, a surprise Dalit face, as chief minister in September after removing Captain Amarinder Singh. But Sidhu, that man who led the charge against Amarinder was side-stepped as the state party president.

Not being one to give up, even when faced with a self-assured Channi who assumed the chief minister’s mantle with a refreshingly humble charm, Sidhu has made sure that he is still in the reckoning.

It does not matter that he is not popular with most people in the state’s Congress, as all the top leaders are gunning for him. But few can deny that in the last few months he has emerged a one-man charge against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which had been gaining support on its plank of ‘change’. Sidhu cannily positioned himself to represent just that on the Congress symbol.

By taking a 13-point ‘Punjab Model of Governance’ to the people, Sidhu has virtually hijacked the party’s proposed election manifesto. He talks passionately about how he intends to bring about drastic changes in the existing methods of governance. The old guard, even within his party, with interests in sand mining and liquor licenses, are his targets.

In September, just days after he was made the PCC president, he suddenly resigned when the new cabinet under Channi was constituted. His aides let it be known that his resignation was mainly to register his opposition to the reinstatement of the tainted Rana Gurjit Singh in the cabinet. Rana, who was the power and irrigation minister in the Amarinder government, had resigned from the cabinet in 2018 after he faced allegations of getting sand mining contracts worth crores in the name of his staff members. He is today the minister of technical education in the Channi government.

When Sidhu takes pot-shots at his party members, including chief minister Channi, he, in his not-so-subtle manner, is pointing out that Channi represents the old way of doing populist politics. And that if anyone signifies real change, it is he, Sidhu. His media interactions are replete with examples of how ministers and legislators had cornered lucrative liquor, sand and transport licenses and how previous chief minister Amarinder Singh stonewalled his attempts to nail them. Now that Channi himself is under a cloud ever since the Enforcement Directorate raided his nephew Bhupinder Singh and recovered Rs 10 crores of unaccounted cash, gold, and other valuables besides documents about extensive properties, Sidhu is loudly proclaiming himself as an upright politician, a strong advocate of clean politics, who has the will to smash sand mining, cable, and liquor mafia in Punjab and generate money for the state from these resources.

As visuals of stacks of the money recovered from Channi’s nephew began to be circulated on social media, Sidhu lost no time to quietly position himself as the ‘Mr. Clean’ of the Congress. When quizzed about his silence on the raids against the chief minister’s nephew, Sidhu toed the party line and talked about the timing of the raids and how they are politically motivated.

Yet, chief minister Channi appears way ahead in the rating game. An informal Twitter poll by Nikhil Alva, an aide of Rahul Gandhi showed that 68.7% of the voters wanted Channi to be the CM face of the Congress. Left to the state Congress, they will also prefer the genial Channi, and several Congress leaders including Rana Gurjit Singh, cabinet ministers Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa and Brahm Mohindra have openly pulled their weight behind Channi.

The substantial Dalit vote – around 33% of the population – that Channi at the helm promises to bring to the Congress kitty is a major consideration. As the first Dalit chief minister, Channi has the potential to consolidate much of Punjab’s fractured Dalit voters who are elated to have one of their own up there. Till now, Dalit votes in Punjab were usually divided between the Congress, the AAP, and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).

The party is conscious of the fact that it is important to counter the widespread perception among the Dalits that Channi is merely a stopgap appointee and that if Congress wins the elections then the party could install someone else. Already the SAD which has an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party has a