How Congress is trying hard to lose Punjab polls
With Assembly elections in Punjab just a year and a half away, the state unit of the Congress appears to be bent on committing political hara-kiri. Senior party leaders, much to the delight of the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coalition partners, are not just having simmering differences but have been crossing swords in the public.
At the heart of the problem is the political survival of either former chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh or the state party chief Partap Singh Bajwa. Amarinder Singh, undoubtedly the most charismatic party leader in Punjab, who enjoys a mass following across the state, is partly backed by party chief Sonia Gandhi. He shares the Doon School connection with Rajiv Gandhi and the two families have known each other for long. Bajwa is seen as the nominee of Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, who has been seen backing him in public.
The latest decision of Amarinder Singh to start a tour, covering all the 117 Assembly constituencies of the state from July 1 is seen as his reply to Bajwa's ongoing state-wide tour - to drum up support for the party. The two are not likely to cross each other’s paths, but the cold war between them is obvious to anyone following politics in the state.
Just before Amarinder announced his state-wide tour, he met Sonia Gandhi and Rahul, who apparently asked him to hold a joint "yatra" in the interest of the party. Such a suggestion had been unacceptable to Amarinder ever since Bajwa was made the party chief much against the former chief minister’s wishes. Going by his reactions after the meeting, it appears that Amarinder has agreed not to criticise Bajwa in public. He has, so far, restrained himself from making any comment, but these are early days yet.
What has gone largely unreported in the media is the suggestion made by some of the MLAs supporting Amarinder that he could look to float a new regional party if the demand to remove Bajwa is not accepted before the elections. One of the MLAs, Karan Kaur Brar, even went on TV and told a regional news channel that she and several others were willing to go with Amarinder if he were to form his own party. Though there have been murmurs in the recent past, the references to forming a regional party coming into public domain may spell danger for the Congress.
Although Amarinder had not been seeing eye to eye with Bajwa ever since his appointment over three years ago, he has gone into overdrive since the Lok Sabha elections. He emerged as the giant killer when he defeated Arun Jaitley, now the union finance minister, even as the Congress was on a losing spree all over the country and the state. It was the first time Amarinder was contesting from Amritsar, as he had been contesting from Patiala in the past, and had not volunteered for the contest.
In fact, his candidature was seen as a "conspiracy" planned by Bajwa to end his political career. It was common knowledge that the ruling Akalis had assured Jaitley of a free run if he was to contest from Amritsar. They had assured him that he need not visit the constituency and could keep himself free for canvassing across the country. Thus he was considered the hot favourite and it was a prestigious contest for the Akalis. However, the nomination of Amarinder changed the scenario completely.
The outcome of the contest, as is well known, dealt a serious blow to the ruling coalition partners in the state and established the supremacy of Amarinder in the Punjab Congress. What was worse for Bajwa and his supporters, the party’s candidate lost badly in his own constituency as well as his wife’s.
As an attempt to keep Amarinder away from the state, he was made the deputy leader of the party in the Lok Sabha but his heart remained in the state and he continued to ignore his function in the Lok Sabha.
He, in fact, escalated his political activities in the state and the response left no one with any doubt about the following he commanded. On several occasions, he hosted lunches and tea parties for party legislators and on an average 35 of the 43 Congress MLAs attended these get togethers as against eight to ten attending Bajwa’s functions.
Amarinder had been keeping the heat on with frequent meetings and occasional statements demanding a change in the leadership of the state unit of the party. There were reports a couple of times that a change in the leadership was on the cards but a late intervention by Rahul Gandhi appeared to have scuttled the plan. Party high command sources had been telling mediapersons off the record that if they were to affect a change in the leadership in Punjab, which the party was not opposed to, similar demands from other states were bound to gain momentum and it would be difficult for the party high command to control the situation.
In the bargain, the party continues to bet on a dead horse who can lay claim to barely half a dozen hardcore supporters among the party legislators. While the continuation of Amarinder as the party leader in the state after losing two consecutive elections in 2007 and 2012 was untenable, and new leadership had to be given a chance, the choice of the new leader by the party high command has evidently been flawed. Even after heading the state unit for over three years, he has not been able to any significant sway among party leaders and workers.
The Congress was predicted to win by most of the pre-poll surveys in 2012 and the party had even planned celebrations on the day the results were declared. There was palpable anger against the ruling combine of SAD and BJP in view of "excesses" and police raj in the rural areas, and corruption across the state. Yes the alliance retained power by winning 58 of the 117 seats, with the Congress lagging behind at 44. The winning margin in several constituencies was quite narrow.
Amarinder was blamed for leading the party to defeat mainly because he and other party leaders got complacent. No effort whatsoever was made to talk to dissidents and party rebels. Most candidates were left on their own to fend for themselves while Sukhbir Badal proved to be a master political strategist by paying attention to each and every constituency and dealing with local problems at the grassroots.
The continued resentment against the Akali-BJP government in the state was also reflected in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Punjab was the only state in the country to elect Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) – all the four MPs - from the state. The main reason for the outcome was the great resentment residents had against the performance of the UPA led by the Congress in the Centre and that of the SAD-BJP coalition in Punjab. It was this vacuum that was ready for the AAP's performance. In neighbouring Haryana, the voters had a choice because they had voted against the Congress and had never tested BJP in the past.
The continued infighting in the Punjab Congress, and its low stock at the centre, coupled with the people's disappointment and disenchantment with the AAP, cannot but delight the SAD-BJP combine, who may be eyeing a third consecutive victory in 2017.