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From ‘side hero’ to poster boy: The meteoric rise of Channi
A self-effacing leader who was not even in the reckoning till he was named by the Congress high command for the CM’s post ahead of the state polls, the 58-year-old Chamkaur Sahib MLA did not let it come in his way and hit the ground running. Channi, seen as a stopgap chief minister whose ability to step out of Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu’s looming shadow was doubted by many, has been simply unstoppable since, and a revelation in many ways.
Chandigarh : Talk about baptism by fire. When the Congress made the change of guard in Punjab to replace Capt Amarinder Singh amid a tussle in the state unit four-and-a-half months ago, it sprang a surprise by choosing three-time MLA Charanjit Singh Channi as the first Dalit chief minister of the state.
A self-effacing leader who was not even in the reckoning till he was named by the Congress high command for the CM’s post ahead of the state polls, the 58-year-old Chamkaur Sahib MLA did not let it come in his way and hit the ground running. Channi, seen as a stopgap chief minister whose ability to step out of Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu’s looming shadow was doubted by many, has been simply unstoppable since, and a revelation in many ways.
During the brief 111-day stint in government, Channi not only used the levers of power to make populist announcements, played to the gallery, and kept invoking his “humble beginnings” to build a pan-Punjab support base among the Scheduled Caste voters, who make up 32% of the state’s three crore population, and the poor. He also shrewdly got the party to rally behind him in difficult situations – PM Narendra Modi’s security breach and the hugely embarrassing ED raids on his nephew that yielded crores in cash – by playing the “victim” on both occasions.
Sunday’s announcement, which completes his transformation into the poster boy of the Congress in Punjab following a quick tele-survey of party supporters and voters, is the apogee of his political career.
Born in Bhajauli village near Kurali, Channi entered politics at a young age and became a councillor in 1992. He tasted his first major success in 2003 when he got elected as the president of the Kharar municipal council, and has not looked back since, going from strength to strength under his own steam.
When he did not get the Congress ticket in 2007, Channi, a Ramdasia Sikh, jumped into the fray as an Independent and won with the party nominee trailing in the third position. He contested the next election in 2012 as the Congress candidate and won the second time, going on to become the leader of opposition in the Punjab assembly during the Parkash Singh Badal-led Akali-BJP government.
Completing his hat-trick in 2017 with the victory margin going up with each election, Channi joined the Amarinder Singh cabinet, but did not get along well with the chief minister and maintained a low profile, privately griping about bureaucrats running the show. As rumblings of discontent started against the Capt Amarinder, he aligned with the CM’s detractor-in-chief Navjot Singh Sidhu and was among the rebel ministers who went to the high command. At the time of deciding Amarinder’s successor, as other contenders rejected each other, he got picked with his Dalit credentials working to his advantage.
Channi, who is passionate about education and has an array of degrees, also seems to know well what works in the Congress. Perhaps it has something to do with a doctorate degree Channi is pursuing from Panjab University on the Congress party’s history and evolution. Now, he plans to a doctorate on the Mahabharata.
