Change of guard in Punjab, but Cong’s problems remain
Channi takes charge as CM; Randhawa, Saini sworn in as his deputies
Charanjit Singh Channi took oath as Punjab’s new chief minister on Monday along with two deputy chief ministers, closing the caste and identity circle in Punjab.
Channi’s new lieutenants are Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa — a Sikh MLA from the Dera Baba Nanak constituency in Gurdaspur district, a stone’s throw away from the India-pakistan border – and OP Soni – MLA from Amritsar Central, part of the parliamentary constituency that saw two successive defeats of top BJP leaders: Arun Jaitley and Hardeep Puri.
However, problems remain. “We will judge the new CM on the basis of the decisions he takes in the next 15 days,” said an advisor in the government of former chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh, who resigned the day the latter stepped down. Amritsar is also the constituency of Navjot Singh Sidhu, state Congress chief and the man who unseated Amarinder Singh, now considered eminence grise in the state.
Agenda
Soon after he was sworn in, Channi, the state’s first Dalit chief minister, called on his predecessor Amarinder Singh for a short meeting, and later announced that electricity will be made cheaper in the state, and “any dues for last five years towards power bills will be waived off today itself.”
The fine print is that the outgoing chief minister had already put these two announcements on his to-do list two weeks before he was shunted out. Unpaid water dues for domestic water connections in villages were to be erased, and dues of gram sabhas that use electricity to pipe ground drinking water to village homes were to be wiped clean.
“These decisions were on the table even earlier. All the new CM has done is announced them,” a source in the outgoing government said. The state government will take a financial hit of around ~200 crore on account of these announcements.
To be fair, Channi said these were not his decisions: “Captain (Amarinder Singh) is the saviour of Punjab waters. Whatever work he was unable to complete due to shortage of time, will be done.”
Channi also called on the Centre to take back the contentious farm laws that farmers have opposed.
“I will sever my head but I won’t let any harm come to the farmers,” Channi said, adding, “We have to strengthen Punjab. It is state of farmers. I appeal to the Centre to withdraw the farm laws.”
However, Channi faced pushback within hours of assuming office. The Chairperson of the National Commission for Women (NCW) Rekha Sharma said he must be prosecuted as women had spoken out against him for sexual harassment.
Amit Malviya, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’S) IT department head, in a tweet said: “Congress’s CM pick Charanjit Channi faces action in a 3-yearold
Metoo case. He had allegedly sent an inappropriate text to a woman IAS officer in 2018. It was covered up but the case resurfaced when Punjab Women’s Commission sent notice. Well done, Rahul.”
Twin challenges
However, this is only part of the problem. The two big challenges before the Congress in Punjab are constituting the new council of ministers and trying the anticipate what unseated leader Amarinder Singh will do now.
Balancing interests in the council of ministers will require political intricacy. Sunil Jakhar, who was unseated when Navjot Sidhu was appointed Congress’ state unit chief in July, reacted sharply when central party leader and observer Harish Rawat said the Congress will contest the upcoming Assembly election under ‘Navjot Sidhu’ and not the new chief minister.
“On the swearing-in day of Charanjit Channi as chief minister, Rawat’s statement that ‘elections will be fought under Sidhu’, is baffling. It is likely to undermine the chief minister’s (designate) authority but also negate the very ‘raison d’etre’ of his selection for this position,”
Jakhar tweeted. The party quickly issued a clarification, but no one was left in any doubt who the real chief minister is likely to be.
The jury, however, is out on Amarinder Singh’s next moves. If the BJP wants to recruit him, it needs to make the supreme sacrifice — of rolling back the three farm laws, because without that, Amarinder Singh is unlikely to cross over.
The farm laws, amended versions of which he had managed to get the Punjab Assembly to pass with the bipartisan support of all parties, including the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) will be the crucial differentiator.
Sources in Amarinder Singh’s camp said the BJP could offer to impose a moratorium of five years, and even that would be acceptable. “After all, the government did offer to put off the operationalisation of the farm laws by two years to farmers, which they rejected,” said an advisor to Capt Amarinder Singh.
They also said Amarinder Singh “could start his own party with the support of the BJP”. But how the BJP will support such a party given the standoff on farm laws is a matter of speculation.