Amitabh Shukla / Chandigarh
Politically suffocated by the
Shiromani Akali Dal and consistently on the back-foot, Congress finally found
an alibi for successive defeats in Punjab and removed
Capt Amarinder Singh from the post of state unit President.
With an aim to make Congress fighting
fit for the Lok Sabha elections next year, party President Sonia Gandhi and
Vice President Rahul Gandhi chose 56-year old Partap Singh Bajwa whose
electoral record has been better compared to the 72-year old Capt Amrinder who
is on a losing spree ever since the party first lost the 2007 assembly polls
and then the 2012 polls which it was widely expected to win. Capt Amarinder was
the mascot of the party in both the elections.
The defeat in the Moga by-polls
and the accompanying turf war between the state party leaders proved to be the proverbial
last straw to break the Camel’s back—the nemesis of the Maharaja of Patiala.
Soon after the defeat, he issued notices to some of the MLAs like Brahm
Mohindra and Kaka Randeep Singh blaming them for not working for the party
candidate in the Moga by-poll. The MLAs retaliated, triggering a full blown war
in the state Congress which threatened the façade of unity assiduously built
for the by-polls. Senior state Congress leaders rushed to Delhi
to appraise the high command that the fratricidal war could have devastating
electoral outcome. The high command acted swiftly and Bajwa was appointed with
the Captain having no inkling of what was about to happen till the statement
issues by AICC General Secretary Janardan Dwivedi in New Delhi.
The countdown for the Captain
began soon after the defeat in the Assembly polls in March last year. For the
first time in 46 years, an incumbent government won the polls and the blame
went to the Captain for his autocratic style, faulty distribution of tickets, two
dozen rebels and also underestimating the Manpreet Badal factor. He resigned
from his post but was asked to stay put for a while. It took a year for the
Congress High command to take a decision which it could have taken just after
the defeat in the assembly polls.
A double whammy awaited the
Captain as the Congress badly lost the civic polls in major cities of the state
soon after the assembly polls. The cities and urban areas were supposed to be
Congress stronghold but here also the BJP and Akali Dal pipped Congress and
took away its urban vote base.
Apart from the style of
functioning, electoral results too played a role in the removal of the Captain.
While Bajwa, the MP from Gurdaspur, managed to get his wife Charanjit Kaur elected
in the Assembly polls from Qadian, Amarinder could not ensure the victory of
his son from Samana which is part of Patiala ,
considered for a long time as the pocket borough of the Maharaja. Earlier Raninder
had lost from Bathinda Lok Sabha constituency in the 2009 polls. The Captain’s
brother, Malwinder also parted company on the eve of the 2012 polls, raising
doubts about the former Chief Minister’s ability to keep his own family and the
party united.
Given the demographic arithmetic
in the state, only a Jat Sikh fitted the space of Capt Amarinder at this point and
in such circumstances, Bajwa was hardly a surprise. He is relatively young at
56, has been through the thick and thin, was the President of Punjab Youth Congress
and comes from a political family of the Majha (border) region of the state.
This is perhaps the end of the political
road for the scion of the erstwhile Patiala
princely state as the premium is on youth under Rahul Gandhi and the party is
unlikely to make him the chief ministerial candidate for the 2017 polls when he
would be 76. As his wife, Preneet Kaur is the Patiala MP and Minister of State
in the UPA government, it is again unlikely that he would contest 2014 Lok
Sabha polls, relinquishing his Patiala Assembly seat. At best, he could hope to
become a Governor or an Ambassador, posts given to retired politicians. (March 7, 2013)
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