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Congress picks Dalit leader Channi as new Punjab chief minister
With under five months to go for the state elections, Singh resigned on Saturday after the Congress summoned a meeting of its lawmakers in the state, saying that he feels “humiliated”, but adding that he won’t accept newly appointed party chief Navjot Singh Sidhu as the next CM or the party’s face in the coming polls.
Punjab got its first Dalit chief minister on Sunday when the Congress picked three-time MLA Charanjit Singh Channi as the leader of the legislature party, a day after Amarinder Singh resigned following a long-drawn and bitter tussle within the state unit of the party.
With under five months to go for the state elections, Singh resigned on Saturday after the Congress summoned a meeting of its lawmakers in the state, saying that he feels “humiliated”, but adding that he won’t accept newly appointed party chief Navjot Singh Sidhu as the next CM or the party’s face in the coming polls.
On Sunday, Channi’s name was announced by Punjab affairs incharge Harish Rawat on Twitter after a series of meetings and feedback gathered by two central observers Ajay Maken and Harish Chaudhary from the party’s legislators. “It gives me immense pleasure to announce that Sh. Charanjit Singh Channi has been unanimously elected as the Leader of CLP of Punjab,” Rawat posted, tagging former Congress president Rahul Gandhi.
Accompanied by Rawat, the central observers and several ministers, Channi, 58, met governor Banwarilal Purohit on Sunday evening at Raj Bhawan in Chandigarh and staked claim to form the government. “The oath-taking ceremony will be held at 11am on Monday,” Channi told reporters after meeting the governor.
Singh, who resigned from the post shortly before a CLP meeting on Saturday, congratulated Channi. “My best wishes to Charanjit Singh Channi. I hope he’s able to keep the border state of Punjab safe and protect our people from the growing security threat from across the border,” the former CM said.
Channi represents the Chamkaur Sahib constituency in the state assembly. Amarinder’s relations with Channi were said to be uneasy throughout his tenure and the latter was among the cabinet ministers who rebelled against him. Channi is considered close to cricketer-turned-politician Sidhu.
His appointment is being touted by some party leaders as a “strategic move” to counter the attempts of rival parties – the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) – to woo the Dalit voters. The BJP has already declared that if voted to power in the state in next year’s assembly elections, it will have a Dalit CM.
The SAD has struck an electoral alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), with the promise to pick a deputy chief minister from the community if they get the numbers to form the government in 2022. At 32%, Dalits constitute almost one-third of the state’s population – the highest anywhere in the country.
The surprise announcement of his name came after hours of hectic parleys that saw the scales tilt in favour of different leaders in the party leadership’s quest for consensus, with some party MLAs, at one stage, even declaring cabinet minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa as the next chief minister. The previous 24 hours were full of dramatic twists and turns as the name of former state unit president Sunil Jakhar was almost finalised on Saturday evening with the backing of former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, people aware of the matter said.
However, the party did not announce it after some MLAs, who met Rawat and the two central observers on the sidelines of the CLP meeting on Saturday, pushed for a Sikh chief minister. “Sidhu and Randhawa were among those who went not in favour of having him in the position,” a senior party leader said on condition of anonymity.
Punjab has never had a non-Sikh CM since the reorganisation of the state in 1966. A few others stressed that the new leader should be from among the MLAs. The person quoted above said that Jakhar, who is not an MLA, was later offered the deputy chief minister’s post which he turned down.
Earlier in the day, Rajya Sabha MP Ambika Soni emerged as the front runner, but she opted out, saying that a Sikh leader should be made the chief minister. After the CLP meet scheduled at 11am was cancelled for want of consensus, Rawat and the two observers called up MLAs to know their preference and cabinet minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa emerged as the favourite, another leader said.
Some Congress MLAs then began reaching his official residence to congratulate him. “His name did not go down well with Sidhu who saw him as a competitor in the future,” a party leader aware of the developments said, asking not to be named. Later, the party leaders declared Channi, whose name was doing the rounds for the post of deputy chief minister, as the new legislature party leader.
Amarinder Singh was nudged into quitting ostensibly over his “failure” to fulfil the promises made by the party in the 2017 assembly polls, people aware of the developments indicated a day earlier.
The two-time chief minister submitted his resignation along with those of his council of ministers to Governor Purohit at the Raj Bhawan barely minutes before a meeting of the CLP, widely seen as having been called to remove him from the CM’s post. The meeting was announced by the Congress high command late on Friday, and it appeared to catch Singh, who was then the leader of the CLP, unawares.
In a letter Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Singh mentioned his “personal anguish” over political developments in the past five months and apprehended that the high command’s move could cause “instability” in the state.
The development came amid a power tussle that divided the ruling party in the state, with Singh and Sidhu at loggerheads. Sidhu was made the state Congress chief earlier this year despite opposition by Singh. Sidhu and several Congress lawmakers in the state have targeted Singh for not fulfilling promises made in the 2017 manifesto, being soft on the Badals of the Akali Dal, and an over-reliance on a small group of bureaucrats.
