What Congress’s choice of its Punjab CM face means

NEW DELHI: The Indian National Congress (INC) has chosen the incumbent chief minister of Punjab, Charanjit Singh Channi, as its chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming

assembly elections

in the state. The Congress leadership's reposing faith in Channi removed doubts about him being a stopgap replacement for Captain Amarinder Singh and long-time contender Navjot Singh Sidhu's hopes of making the cut.

Rahul Gandhi declared Channi the party’s CM-face, in the presence of party's state president Navjot Singh Sidhu and senior leader

Sunil Jakhar

, in Ludhiana.

Sidhu, who had pitched himself as the state’s next CM, toned down his earlier rhetoric that the top leadership wanted a weak CM. He publicly hugged Channi on stage prior to the announcement and said that he had “already accepted whatsoever decision” Gandhi had made as it was “time to remove all confusions and announce the name of the CM candidate.”

It is likely that the Congress, by choosing Channi, will be hoping to bag Dalit votes as Channi comes from the Mazhbi Sikh community, especially as the party’s arch rival in the state, the SAD, has a tie-up with the BSP.

However, whether caste distinctions matter in a state which had its first backward class CM 50 years back, in 1972 — when Giani Zail Singh from the Ramgarhia community became the CM — is yet to be seen.

The choice of Channi also lays to rest any chief ministerial ambitions being harboured either by Sidhu or Jakhar, who had just last week claimed that he had the support of 42 MLAs who wanted him to be the CM after Amarinder Singh’s exit.