Wrecking ball of chief ministerial face in Punjab Cong
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi may have stepped on a landmine during his recent visit to Punjab by agreeing to announce the chief ministerial candidate of the state. The party has only two faces with any big traction left. The first is Jat Sikh Navjot Singh Sidhu, who came in like a wrecking ball with the approval of the Gandhi family to replace Amarinder Singh as chief minister and demolished every party edifice, but fell short of the final target. The beneficiary was the accidental Dalit Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, who Sidhu thought would be an easily replaceable rolling stone but has surprisingly gathered moss and become an alternative power centre. Both Sidhu and Channi cater to different intra-party vote banks. Choosing one over the other as the chief ministerial face has the potential to switch off Jat Sikhs or Dalits barely weeks before polling. Yet, both pressed Rahul to commit harakiri by abandoning the middle ground of joint leadership.
It was the fledgling AAP that rolled the dice by selecting comedian Bhagwant Mann as the chief ministerial face through crowdsourcing. That his managers would have used every trick, including buying off professional trolls not just in Punjab but across cyberspace to saturate the AAP app and helpline with likes for him is a safe guess. While the AAP’s decision forced Rahul’s hand, the modus of his cherry-picking is not clear. But the Dalit empowerment card would blow up in his face if Rahul were to opt for Sidhu. Anyway, Sidhu is a motormouth with an image more suitable for comedy than serious politics. His brief stint in power in Amarinder’s ministry found him wary of taking hard decisions. As for Channi, he may not find it easy to shake off the stigma of alleged sand smuggling his nephew is involved in. The Congress mess and the entry of a section of farmers into the poll fray is said to be helping the Shiromani Akali Dal recover some lost ground. Also the powerful deras may have pitched their tents away from the ruling party.
Punjab seems to have an assembly line of comedians, one of whom runs a highly successful TV show. Will comedy have the last laugh this election season?