In Cong upheaval, AAP stands to gain the most

Chandigarh Barely five months before the state assembly polls, the Congress got rid of its chief minister to bring a fresh face and to end the ongoing tussle in the state unit

Chandigarh Barely five months before the state assembly polls, the Congress got rid of its chief minister to bring a fresh face and to end the ongoing tussle in the state unit.

The AAP is yet to declare a CM face in Punjab, with party MP Bhagwant Mann having staked his claim once, to a cold response from Arvind Kejriwal, its convener. It could gain by an early announcement. (HT Photo)

Its troubles, however, are far from over with Capt Amarinder Singh becoming combative. His scathing attacks on Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu and the party leadership will provide more ammunition to the opposition, lurking to take advantage of the growing fissures in the ruling party.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) stands to gain more from the Congress infighting than the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bahujan Samaj Party (SAD-BSP) combine. The BJP, which has been at the receiving end of the protesting farmers’ ire, is still struggling to get its act together.

The AAP, which won 20 seats in the 2017 state polls to emerge as the principal opposition party, is already going all out to make the most of the instability in the Congress. It is slowly gaining traction in large pockets of the state with its campaign theme that they (people) have seen what the Congress and the SAD have to offer and should give them a chance. The party does not have a heavy baggage from the past, unlike the Akalis who are not only facing a blowback from farmers, but are also on the back-foot over the emotive sacrilege and police firing issues.

The AAP, on the other hand, has been consistent in attacking both the Congress and the Akalis on these issues.

Ashutosh Kumar, professor of political science, Panjab University, says the AAP will stand to gain from the upheaval in the Congress in a multi-cornered contest, as things stand now, because the Akalis are still to recover from the dent their image has suffered in public perception.

“They (AAP) have their own sets of problems, starting with the fact they have not been able to offer a chief ministerial face to people. Another issue is the party leadership’s attempts to run the state unit from Delhi which had hurt them in 2017 as well,” he says. AAP national convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had, on June 21, announced in Amritsar that the CM candidate will be from the Sikh community.

While the party has been searching for a prominent Sikh personality for its CM face, two-time Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann, the most popular state leader of the party, has run out of patience. The party’s top brass has offered to make him the deputy CM in case it gets the numbers needed to form the government in 2022, but has reservations about making him the face of the party, said sources. Of late, Mann has been maintaining a low-profile which does not augur well for the party with the state polls drawing closer with each passing day.