After three days of closed-door meetings with political leaders in New Delhi, former Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh returned to the state on 30 September. Landing at the Chandigarh airport, he made it clear to the waiting media persons that he stood by his decision. To leave the Congress—and that he would formally announce his exit later—he would not join the BJP. There is widespread speculation that Captain is planning to form a new political party, with many saying he will make an announcement in this regard within the next fortnight, perhaps around Dussehra.
The Captain’s rebellion has added to the already turbulent politics of Punjab. With assembly elections just a few months away, he will face many challenges in his bid to forge an independent political space, from party funding to legacy issues – Amarinder is seen as an inclusive leader and while he No longer holding the chief minister’s post, it may be that he is still battling the anti-incumbency sentiment that he had led the state in four and a half years. Those close to him believed that his brand of nationalism would ensure that he received public support, as would his reputation as a liberal Sikh. “And his age is just a number. In 2012, Parkash Singh Badal was 84 when he was sworn in as chief minister,” says a close aide.
The bitter tussle between the Congress and Amarinder Singh has made the BJP take a fresh look at Punjab
Sources say that the impetus to get ready for another election battle also came from the “insult and humiliation” meted out to him by the Congress in the past few weeks. Here again, issues of heritage have to be looked at – while Amarinder has good relations with Congress President Sonia Gandhi, the same cannot be said of his equation with Rahul. Between 2013 and 2017, Rahul made several unsuccessful attempts to reshape the party’s Punjab unit, pushing for an alternative power center with Pratap Singh Bajwa as the head of the PCC (Pradesh Congress Committee). For the 2017 assembly election, Amarinder had his foot down, threatening to step down if he was not given a free hand – and on Sonia’s intervention, Rahul addressed just two rallies in that campaign. stepped aside. Amarinder then built his campaign not on the strength of the Congress but on the story of “Captain di Sarkar (Captain’s Government)”, and over the past four years, has struggled to keep Rahul away from both the Punjab government and the party. state unit. Despite pressure from the Gandhi family, he opposed the appointments of leaders such as Navjot Singh Sidhu, Amarinder Singh Raja Waring and many other Gandhi family loyalists.
The bitter tussle between the Congress and Amarinder Singh has made the BJP look afresh at Punjab. The saffron party has been at loggerheads in the state since last September, when its 25-year-old alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) ended following the controversial rollout of three new agricultural laws. Meetings between Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Amarinder in late September suggest that the saffron party is eager to win them over as it needs a new partner to make up for the loss of old ally SAD.
In Punjab, the BJP’s vote bank is predominantly upper caste Hindus, although it has found support among urban Dalits as well. His former alliance with the SAD gave him some support among the upper caste Sikhs in parts of the state, which he could no longer rely on. Hindus make up about 38.5 percent of the electorate, and there are some 45 urban seats where Hindus are either the majority or form a large block. The BJP is looking for a partner with support in rural areas of the state, dominated by Jat Sikhs, who make up 18 per cent of the electorate and a driving force in opposition to the Centre’s new agricultural laws. Hindus are swing voters in Punjab, and as such, a deciding factor in elections. Over the past two decades, he has gone with the Congress in larger numbers than the Akali-BJP alliance, with Amarinder Singh’s reputation as a moderate playing a bigger role. However, he cannot take this support lightly – in 2007, the vote moved away from him, leading the SAD-BJP alliance to take over the urban centers and form the government.
sSince then, Amarinder Singh has gone out of his way to maintain nationalist optics – this includes his refusal to meet Canadian Defense Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan in 2017 and his description of Sajjan as a “Khalistani sympathizer”. In February 2018, Amarinder received a lot of pressure from the party high command to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on a visit to Amritsar. Nevertheless, Amarinder made it clear at the meeting that he was unhappy with prominent Sikh fundamentalists in the Trudeau cabinet, even for handing over a list of nine pro-Khalistan militants operating in Canada.
The Captain’s nationalistic posture is also in stark contrast to Navjot Singh Sidhu’s on-camera friendship with the Pakistani high command, when he was photographed hugging Pakistan Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa at Prime Minister Imran Khan’s swearing-in ceremony in 2018. Amarinder has often talked about it. Pakistan is a threat to India, especially in a border state like Punjab, through its attempts to incite violence and the delivery of weapons, drugs and other banned material to nefarious actors. All this is calculated to garner support from the urban centers of Punjab, where people still remember the days of the Khalistan movement with awe.
In that context, Amarinder Singh’s nationalist image in particular remains his greatest asset. The former chief minister has also dramatized around his resignation – that he was forced by the Congress party high command to appease Sidhu – in order to strike a chord with Hindus and moderate Sikhs and counter the anti-incumbency wave. In an attempt to persuade. The feeling that can haunt him even when he is out of power.
Captain Amarinder Singh with Union Home Minister Amit Shah on September 29; (Photo by ANI)
PPolitical observers say that if the former chief minister wants to build a bridge with the BJP, he will have to reconsider his position on the Centre’s agricultural laws and do so to quell the anger of Jat Sikhs. People close to him say that he is working with enemy-turned-friend Pratap Singh Bajwa on this, meeting with farmer unions and trying to find a solution. Sources say that the issue was discussed in his meeting with Home Minister Shah on September 29. Despite being ousted from the post of chief minister, Amarinder still wields considerable influence among non-Akali and non-communist-backed farmers’ unions—for one, he remains the head of the influential All India Jat Mahasabha, and the then Maharaja. Patiala Jagir. “More than a Congress leader, Amarinder’s political stature in Punjab is as a Sikh leader, a regional satrap,” says Jagtar Sandhu, author and commentator on Punjab’s politics and history.
Those close to Amarinder believe that his brand of nationalism would ensure that he received public support, as well as his reputation as a liberal Sikh.
Time will tell whether the former chief minister can leverage his authority to end the farmers’ agitation, which has been raging for months. The recent violence in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri, in which a BJP Union minister’s son allegedly crushed peaceful farmer protesters, has brought the issue back to the fore. The state and national leadership of the BJP has once again come on the defensive. The local administration could not refrain from registering an FIR against Ashish Mishra, son of Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra. While this may quell public anger, politicians and farmers’ unions have been accusing the BJP of hiding. After his resignation, Amarinder Singh has taken every opportunity to go after Sidhu, and is determined to ensure that he is defeated in the assembly elections. Sources say that he is also extremely disappointed with the Gandhi family.
Amarinder’s departure is set to hurt the Congress in the upcoming elections in Punjab – one of only three states the party still controls. His stature in Punjab can also be gauged from the fact that he has won an election victory in the Modi wave. In 2014, he defeated BJP chief General Arun Jaitley in the Amritsar elections; In the 2017 assembly election, his campaign brought 77 Congress members to the assembly (out of a total of 117), among its highest in the state in the post-terrorism era. In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Punjab was one of only two states (the other being Kerala) where the Congress did well. Ashutosh Kumar, professor of political science at Panjab University, says the loss for the Congress is certain; He says the only question is how widespread the damage could be.
Amarinder has maintained a lot of goodwill and support in the Congress. Disappointed senior leaders like Manish Tewari and Kapil Sibal have created a ruckus over the developments. And it is likely that more leaders will join the chorus in the days to come. There has been apparently no effort by the Congress high command to reach out to him since his exit, only the G23 leaders (who wrote to Sonia Gandhi in August 2020 demanding party elections and an organizational change) contacted him. stay in
Sources say that Amarinder is almost certain to form a new party by Dussehra, and back talks are on to form a separate faction with the Congress. Some suggest that he is trying to topple the Charanjit Singh Channi government by persuading 22 MLAs to walk out, of whom 18 are clearly ready and willing to do their bidding. MPs like his wife Preneet Kaur (representing Patiala), Mohammad Sadiq (Faridkot), GS Aujla (Amritsar), Manish Tewari (Anandpur Sahib) and Santokh Singh Choudhary (Jalandhar) are also with him. Channi has named three Amarinder loyalists – Deputy Chief Ministers Om Prakash Soni, Brahm Mohindra and Vijay Inder Singla – in his cabinet, but it is not certain whether they will remain loyal to the new chief minister.
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