Finishing 100 days and vows, will Congress win in Punjab?

Concluding 100-days and vows, will Congress hack it in Punjab?

For a party going to a multi-cornered election based on its 100-odds days of performance towards the fag end of its tenure and not its four-and-half years of rule since 2017, it remains a challenging arduous task ahead.

The ruling Congress in Punjab wants the electorate to weigh them on what they did in the last 3 months ever since Captain Amarinder Singh was unceremoniously ousted as the chief minister. The Congress campaign in poll-bound Punjab will focus on tall promises, freebies and a new leadership at the helm of affairs that is willing to bite the bullet. This is perhaps the only election where the incumbent outgoing regime wants the electorate to expunge all what it did, or did not do, in four and half years after coming to power, which is why the Congress is banking more on symbolism to woo the voters.

With polls round the corner and a wounded Captain and other Congress adversaries threatening to upset the applecart, it was the elevation of firebrand leader Navjot Singh Sidhu as the Congress state chief and eventually the coronation of Charanjit Channi as chief minister, which the Congress wanted to showcase as the refurbished party to save Punjab.

Also Read | Punjab Polls: It's Majithia versus Majithia versus Majithia, literally!

As a slew of populist announcements spilled out on expected lines and Channi’s visual projection as a next door ‘aam aadmi’ was broadcasted with impunity, there were flip flops that left much to be desired. Channi’s government changed three DGP’s and two state advocate generals in quick succession owing to one or the other differences between the state Congress top brass. The Congress bit more than it could chew in the NDPS case it registered against former Akali minister Bikram Singh Majithia, who is the brother of former union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal.

Both Sidhu and Channi wanted to project their intent to catch the ‘big fish’ involved in drug trade. This was one way the Congress wanted to castigate and undermine Capt for his alleged soft paddling on the drug issue over the years. But the opposition tirade that Channi and the Badals were in cahoots, which is why Majithia could not be arrested even weeks after the FIR, has left the Congress with a lot of answering to do.

The Congress so far shying away from projecting its chief ministerial candidate too may see some public display of dissent with Sidhu, a Jat Sikh, pitching in firmly. To brush off CM Channi, a Dalit leader in a state that has the highest percentage of Dalits at 33 per cent, too will invite a backlash, something that could aggrandize challenges for the Congress ahead of polls.

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