Rahul Gandhi’s end-of-August visit to Punjab has been postponed for no credible reason. While Punjab Congress leaders now expect Rahul Gandhi to visit the poll-bound state by September. The postponement is being linked to growing factionalism within the party in the state. The contradictory statements on Sajjan Kumar could be another reason.
Congress think tank believes that Rahul Gandhi could face an embarrassing situation if the dissenting group resorts to sloganeering in the former’s public meetings. In recent days, not a single meeting of Punjab Congress President Raja Warring has gone without sloganeering and commotion unleashed by the supporters of the rival group headed by former CM & Dalit leader Charanjit Singh Channi.
Factionalism in Congress fails to fade even as sulking Punjab Congress leader Charanjit Singh Channi is not at all interested in attending party events for quite some time. He recently on August 19 yet again skipped all important Congress Working Committee meetings in Delhi.
The hostility between Jalandhar Congress MP Charanjit Singh Channi and State Congress President Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, who is also Congress MP from Ludhiana, is well known.
Channi, a dalit leader heads a faction within Congress that does not want to contest coming assembly polls in the border state under Warring’s leadership.
A former CM Punjab, Channi was projected by Congress as the first Dalit CM of Punjab in run up to the 2022 assembly elections. This was deliberately done to allure dalits that account for a major chunk of votes in the state. Here, we need to understand that in terms of percentage, Punjab has the highest number of Dalits, when compared to other states in the country.
But Channi then in the assembly polls lost from both seats he contested. He lost Chamkaur Sahib by margin of 7,942 votes and Bhadaur assembly seat by a big margin of 37,558 votes. With Congress then losing the polls and AAP emerging victorious, the Congress all hopes of encashing in on Dalit leadership in Punjab came crashing down.
Subsequently, Congress high command started avoiding him. This led to his alienation, resulting in the current political situation in Punjab.
The other major factor that could have led to Rahul Gandhi avoiding Punjab as of now could be the Sajjan Kumar episode. Congress leaders from Haryana, particularly the Hooda family and Randeep Singh Surjewala, had paid their obituaries to the late Congress leader, who passed away recently and was indicted by the court for his role in the killing of Sikhs in the infamous 1984 riots.
This led to some serious reactions from Congress leaders of Punjab. Rahul Gandhi visit to Punjab at this juncture could be counterproductive and the party seems to have thought it proper to keep Rahul Gandhi away from Punjab for the time being.
