‘BAFFLING’: JHAKHAR HITS OUT AT RAWAT’S REMARK
CHANDIGARH/ NEW DELHI: Congress leader Sunil Jakhar criticised party general secretary Harish Rawat on Monday for saying the upcoming elections will be fought under Punjab unit chief Navjot Singh Sidhu, forcing the party to go into damage control mode barely a day after naming a new chief minister to stem infighting.
The party on Sunday named three-time lawmaker Charanjit Singh Channi as Punjab’s first Dalit chief minister, hoping to end months of squabbling between Sidhu and former CM Amarinder Singh for control of the party. But hours later, Rawat, who is the party’s Punjab incharge, said that the party will go into the polls, scheduled early next year, with Sidhu as its face.
“Mr Rawat’s statement that ‘elections will be fought under Sidhu’, is baffling. It’s likely to undermine CM’s authority but also negate the very ‘raison d’etre’ of his selection for this position,” tweeted Jakhar, who was replaced as party unit chief in July 2021, to make way for Sidhu. Party leaders later said that both Channi and Sidhu will be the face of the party’s election campaign.
Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the next elections will be fought under the leadership of both Channi and Sidhu and attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party, Akali Dal, Bahujan Samaj Party and Aam Aadmi Party for insulting a Dalit chief minister.
“Our faces will be Charanjit Singh Channi and Navjot Singh Sidhu as also ordinary Congress workers and leaders who will be supporting them. If anybody says one or the other will be the face, intentionally or otherwise, it is being misinterpreted by the media,” he told reporters.
On Sunday, Punjab Congress in charge Harish Rawat said that the upcoming state assembly elections will be fought under the leadership of party’s state unit chief Navjot Singh Sidhu. “It (Congress face for upcoming state assembly polls) will be decided by the Congress president, but given the circumstances, elections will be fought under Sidhu, who is very popular,” he was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
He alleged the BJP, SAD, AAP and BSP had “unwarrantedly, shamelessly and regrettably” attacked the candidature of Channi.
“We would urge Narendra Modi ji, JP Nadda, Sukhbir Singh Badal, Arvind Kejriwal and Mayawati ji to not grudge the rightful due of a Dalit’s son who is today the chief minister of Punjab, and instead of shamelessly criticising him, they should hail his elevation,” the Congress leader said.
Bahujan Samaj Party chief and former Uttar Pradesh chief
minister Mayawati accused the Congress of tokenism.
“I also came to know from the media that the next assembly
polls in Punjab would be contested under leadership of a nonDalit. This means that the Congress still does not fully trust Dalits,” she said
Jakhar, a Hindu face, was a frontrunner for the chief minister’s post after Amarinder Singh resigned on September 18, following months of internal strife that left the state unit divided months before polls.
The 67-year-old leader is the son of former Union minister Balram Jakhar and helmed the Punjab unit of the Congress between 2017 and 2021.