With Channi’s elevation, the Congress has an opportunity in 2022. But it won’t be easy
What guided the Congress’s choice of the new chief minister (CM) in Punjab? The fact of Charanjit Singh Channi being meritorious or was it just caste that clinched the issue? Regardless of the factors that weighed on the leadership’s mind, the party has, in its troubled times, scored a socially creative first — that of giving the state a Dalit Sikh CM.
The new incumbent, who also practices Hindu rituals, is from the electorally significant Ramdasiya (Chamar) community, which is different from the Mazabhi (Balmiki) Sikhs. Ramdasiyas are concentrated primarily in Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur and Kapurthala districts of the Doab between the Sutlej and Beas rivers. The region sends 23 legislators to the 117-member assembly, compared to 26 from Majha and 68 from Malwa.
There is another first within the first in Channi’s surprise elevation. Giani Zail Singh, who served as Punjab’s first other backward class (OBC) CM in the 1970s, had accorded equal SC reservations to the two groups. But, for some inexplicable reasons, the Ramdasiyas never got to see power at the Centre. Be it under the Congress or the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), coveted political offices in Delhi went to Mazabhi Sikhs — former home minister Buta Singh; former deputy speaker CS Atwal and Dhanna Singh Gulshan, a minister in Morarji Desai’s Janata regime. The ministerial stints of Channi’s clansmen have been restricted to the state. Besides him, the other SC minister in the Amarinder Singh dispensation, Aruna Chaudhary, was also a Ramdasiya.
In realpolitik terms, the freshly minted CM, albeit a three-time legislator from Chamkaur Sahib, lacks the political heft of his predecessor. That’s more so with the media painting him as a camp-follower of the Punjab Congress chief, Navjot Sidhu, rather than a leader in his own right, say, like Sukhjinder Randhawa or OP Soni, who took oath with Channi. A Hindu face from Amritsar, Soni is opposed to Sidhu in the local and state politics.
The quick-fix media narrative has been fuelled further by the central leadership’s pointsperson for Punjab, Harish Rawat, whose remarks giving primacy to Sidhu appeared to undermine the CM’s authority at the start of his innings. Former state party president Sunil Jakhar wasn’t off the mark while pointing it out in a sharp rejoinder. But if the Congress wins elections under the new CM, Sidhu will have to remain content as the state unit committee chief, for it isn’t going to be easy for the party to anoint a Jat Sikh over a Dalit Sikh who helped it retain power.
Much will depend, however, on Channi’s conduct as the CM, and his acceptability in the Jat Sikh-driven polity, which is very much linked to the promise of action on sacrilege cases against the Akali leadership. His target constituency should be the 60%+ OBC-HinduDalit voters. The challenge for Channi is to be acceptable to the Hindus, if there is resistance from Jat Sikhs who wield way more clout than their 19% demographic share.
For the present, the Congress, by projecting Channi, has upended the Aam Aadmi Party and the SAD-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance which was gaining ground in Doab. It, nevertheless, will be an uphill task for the faction-ridden party to translate into political support the euphoria over its seemingly bold social initiative.
If the Congress fights the polls as one team, Channi’s Dalit appeal can be enchased across Punjab. His constituency, Chamkaur Sahib, is in Ropar district, which straddles Doab and the larger Malwa region on the political map. But he won’t succeed unless the Gandhi family has his back.
The so-called high command would be defeating its own cause if it promotes any parallel centre of power in the run-up to the polls. The arc-lights have to be on the CM who has to reach out to all groups to garner support. In the short term, Sidhu’s personalised feud with the Captain has resulted in the equal and mutual destruction of ambition.
He would do well to wait his turn, and reconcile to being a facilitator rather than a competitor in the larger goal of the party retaining power.