PUNJAB: FROM BAD TO WORSE
On August 30, a day after meeting Rahul Gandhi at his residence in New Delhi, Congress general secretary Harish Rawat, in charge of the party’s affairs in Punjab, partially walked back his earlier statement on August 25 that the Punjab Congress would go to polls under the leadership of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh. Instead, he noted that the Congress has many well-known leaders in the state, “[including] Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief Navjot Singh Sidhu”. However, Rawat has also conveyed the party high command’s displeasure with the Sidhu camp’s outbursts. He travelled to Chandigarh on August 31 and met with Sidhu and his camp; on September 1, he was to meet with the chief minister and his loyalists.
Given the animosity between the Amarinder and Sidhu camps, uncertain pronouncements like these have created many problems for the Congress in Punjab, leaving it unclear where the party leadership stands on the fight between the two state leaders. The squabble has even complicated the strategy for the assembly polls to be held in February next year, alongside polls in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Manipur and Goa. At the moment, the Congress’ state unit looks to be in disarray. Over the past four months, the battle between the Amarinder and Sidhu camps has damaged the party’s standing, even helping revitalise the Akali Dal and the BJP.
To roll out an effective campaign, the Congress urgently needs to set its house in order. The problem is finding a way to keep Sidhu and Amarinder on the same page and to keep the aggressive Sidhu in check. Just over a month ago, on July 23, Sidhu—with the apparent support of Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi—was installed as state PCC chief, despite Amarinder Singh’s opposition to the decision. Now, four cabinet ministers allied with Sidhu—Tript Rajinder Bajwa, Sukhjinder Randhawa, Charanjit Channi and Sukhwinder Sarkaria—along with the state unit’s newly appointed general secretary (organisation) Pargat Singh, a Sidhu loyalist, have demanded the removal of Amarinder Singh as chief minister. This followed the same script that earlier saw Sidhu seeking the ouster of the chief minister and being rewarded with an appointment as Punjab PCC chief. This time, Amarinder was better prepared.
On August 10, the chief minister met party chief Sonia Gandhi to discuss the political situation. On August 24, the dissident leaders had camped in Delhi to meet Rahul Gandhi, only to be diverted by national general secretary (organisation), K.C. Venugopal to meet Harish Rawat in Dehradun. The dissidents say Amarinder has failed to deliver on emotive issues like the alleged instances of the desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib in 2015 and the subsequent police firing on protesters. They also accuse him of failing to crack down on the drug mafias, of going easy on monopolistic business syndicates and even of collusion with the Shiromani Akali Dal.
These leaders are no fans of Sidhu, but are rumoured to have shifted their loyalties from Amarinder to Sidhu after receiving assurances from senior Congressmen in New Delhi. Most of
THE BATTLE BETWEEN THE AMARINDER AND SIDHU CAMPS HAS DAMAGED THE CONGRESS IN PUNJAB
them don’t have a future outside the Congress and will ultimately toe the party line. Political analysts suggest their rebellion against Amarinder Singh was prompted by whispers that they were set to be dropped in an upcoming cabinet reshuffle. In the past month, Bajwa’s nephew Navjot Singh Mahal was transferred from the post of district police chief of Hoshiarpur to the less important post of commandant of armed police at Jalandhar. Punjab’s various investigation agencies are also regathering documents on various scams, including the sale of spurious seeds and of illicit and spurious liquor. Meanwhile, the Enforcement Directorate has accelerated its probe into the irrigation scam. A few of the rebel ministers and legislators have also seen their names cropping up in the investigations.
The real headache for Congress leaders is reining in the aggressive Sidhu. On August 27, at a party function in Amritsar, Sidhu challenged the party high command, saying that if he was not allowed to take decisions,
“it naal it waja dawanga (I will take each and every one to task).” However, before this, he had acceded to Rawat’s demand to axe his controversial advisor Malvinder Singh Mali, after Mali embroiled himself in controversy by posting a sketch of the late prime minister Indira Gandhi standing near a heap of human skulls, holding a gun with a skull hanging on its muzzle—the cover page of a 1989 issue of a Punjabi magazine that he had edited. Then, on August 15, a post Mali put up claimed that Kashmir was a separate country and that both India and Pakistan were illegal occupants. Even Sidhu’s loyalist Tript Rajinder Bajwa described this as anti-national material.
These developments have come at a time when Amarinder’s camp is already livid with Sidhu for not criticising the August 17 vandalisation of a statue of Maharaja Ranjit Singh (founder of the Khalsa empire) at the Lahore Fort, allegedly by a member of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik, a radical group in Pakistan. Sidhu has also maintained silence on the unfolding situation in Afghanistan following the takeover by the Taliban, with many Hindu and Sikh families among the hundreds of Afghans waiting to be evacuated to India. Whether by his actions or silences, Sidhu has sparked several similar controversies in the past. In August 2018, he drew flak for hugging Pakistan army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa at Imran Khan’s oath-taking ceremony as Pakistan prime minister. This was at a time when India-Pakistan ties had deteriorated following a string of terror attacks on Indian security installations in Dinanagar, Pathankot and Uri. Sidhu was also accused of shying away from criticising the Pakistani establishment after the February 2019 suicide attack on CRPF troopers in Pulwama, which escalated military tensions between India and Pakistan.
The CM’s camp is worried that Sidhu’s perceived sympathies for Pakistan will alienate moderate Sikhs and Hindus. Meanwhile, the feedback from the party high command seems to be that Amarinder Singh is facing antiincumbency in Punjab and that Sidhu’s elevation could help curtail this trend. Yet even after his appointment as PCC chief, Sidhu has continued to directly attack the chief minister. Leaders from Amarinder Singh’s camp also complain that while office bearers of state units are usually given appointment letters printed only on AICC (All India Congress Committee) letterheads and signed by the national general secretary (organisation), Sidhu is appointing people on his own letterhead, bypassing the official procedure.
A top Congress leader tells india today that what Sidhu must realise is that he has only been appointed president of the state unit—this does not make the Punjab Congress his fief. However, the same leader also points out that no one knows how much rope he has been given by the Gandhi siblings. It might yet fall to Sonia Gandhi to restore order before it is too late.