The Congress lost badly in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections to a second Narendra Modi wave in the country, but there was a silver lining. This was from Punjab where Captain Amarinder Singh as CM had beaten all odds to deliver eight out of 13 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
Within three years of the same, the Congress has lost Punjab with all its top leaders crashing to defeats. Captain, who was unceremoniously removed as Chief Minister five months ago, lost from Patiala while contesting from his new party. The Congress ‘Dalit trump card’ and Chief Ministerial face Charanjit Singh Channi lost from both the seats he contested and the state party chief Navjot Singh Sidhu lost his seat. The party dropped to a low of 18 seats and 23% vote share.
So how did the Congress get there? The answers for the same lie in what brought the Congress to power in 2017, a series of missteps by the Gandhi siblings and bitter infighting in the ranks which never ebbed.
Captain Amarinder Singh became the CM promising two major things to the people – justice in the emotive 2015 sacrilege and police firing cases of Faridkot and resolving the drug menace in the state. He even took a vow on the holy book of the Sikhs that he would deliver on these issues.
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But people’s patience started running out post 2019 when Captain neither acted against the Badals in the sacrilege-police firing cases nor against Akali Dal leader Bikram Majithia in the drug cases. The High Court’s move last year to quash the SIT investigation in the former came as a body blow to the Captain government and dented its credibility. The Congress high command realised the same and decided to replace Captain just five months before the elections.
But as it proves now, this was a decision left too late with the damage being already done. To make matters worse, the Gandhi siblings chose a relatively unknown face in Charanjit Singh Channi as the CM instead of Navjot Singh Sidhu who had rallied to get Captain removed on the twin issues of justice in the sacrilege and drug abuse cases. Channi was projected as a “Dalit trump card” in a state not known for caste politics, exemplified best by the BSP’s failure to grow in Punjab.
The result was the cold war between Sidhu and Captain turning into a cold war between Sidhu and Channi with both leaders openly taking potshots at each other and Sidhu in a fit of rage even resigning as the state party chief before staying on without much explanation for the change of heart.
The party could not put up a united face on any occasion and matters became worse after Rahul Gandhi in an unexpected move declared Channi as the CM face ahead of Sidhu.
Congress did this after being stumped by AAP in making Bhagwant Mann as its CM face. Congress which publicly said earlier it would fight the election under the “collective leadership” and not declare a CM face, did a U-turn under AAP’s pressure. The result – a miffed Sidhu confined himself to his Amritsar (East) seat and did not step out to campaign, while in the key Malwa region, none of Congress top faces like Sidhu, Sunil Jakhar or Partap Singh Bajwa campaigned.
Jakhar made matters worse for the Congress by saying that he was the majority choice of MLAs as CM when he was upstaged by Channi. Jakhar comment became a source of Sikh-Hindu politics in Punjab, which worked against the party. Jakhar also declared he was quitting politics in the midst of the campaign. Congress leaders like Manish Tiwari were excluded from the star campaigners’ list as they were perceived to be closer to Captain Amarinder Singh.
Channi in 111 days in the chair could further do nothing on the sacrilege-police firing cases, paving the way for the wipe-out of the Congress party from the Malwa region and Aam Aadmi Party also made inroads into the Majha region which is known as the Sikh Panthic base in the state.
Channi finally did get an FIR lodged against Majithia in the drug abuse case but again this seemed a case of too little, too late as the people’s mind was already made up by then to vote out the Congress.
Above all, the Congress defeat in Punjab is also a case of a deep yearning in the state for “change” and people bought the dream of corruption-free governance and change of system as promised by Arvind Kejriwal and Bhagwant Mann.
While many in Punjab were critical of the Congress and Akali Dal, the real anger in the state was against the “system” and the feeling that Congress and Akali Dal had been hand-in-glove to protect each other’s interests while in power.
The AAP promised to smash this “system and collusion” and act against illegal sand mining mafia, illegal transport mafia and create jobs in the state by brining in industry. Bhagwant Mann’s words that he would create jobs in Punjab to stop every second youth in the state from giving the IELTS exam and migrate to Canada, struck a chord.
The yearning for ‘change’ was so strong that even the farmer agitation had no impact despite the Congress backing the farmers fully.
One couldn’t help but notice an all-pervasive sense of sadness in the state amongst people when News18.com travelled widely during the campaign. This was a state where people had given up hope in the political class to solve their problems or improve their lives and the youth thought it was better to leave for foreign shores with the fields being tilled by migrant labourers from other states.
The AAP came as a big beacon of hope with its ‘Rangla Punjab’ model, which Punjabis are now looking forward to from Mann and Kejriwal.
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