Amarinder Singh: The Congress Captain who soldiers on

His sprawling palace spread in several acres in Patiala, around a dozen pedigree horses grazing in the backyard and lavish king-sized lifestyle is not just the only thing that defines Captain Amarinder Singh, the incumbent chief minister of Punjab.

The scion of the erstwhile Patiala royals, Amarinder has proved many times he’s a people’s man who seldom hesitates to take hard decisions, he has many to count on, especially the ones impelled by his conscience. He still remains Congress' best bet in Punjab, one of the few states where the beleaguered party has a majority stake and rule. That he is lying low, at least for now, in the changing dynamics that have brought his estranged former cabinet colleague and ex-cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu at the helm of affairs in the Punjab Congress, remains inconsequential. Simply put, many in the Congress believe emphatically: Punjab cannot be won without the Captain.

The former soldier is an ardent reader and writer of history and wants to create his own. His decisions have aroused passions, at times controversies. Just a few years into his new-found love for politics way back in the 80s, Amarinder resigned as a Congress member of Parliament in 1984 over his complete disapproval of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s decision to launch Operation Bluestar when the Army stormed into the Golden Temple to flush out militants holed up inside. He dabbled with the Akali Dal for some time and later rejoined the Congress.

An author of many books, Amarinder’s ongoing term as the chief minister, which will end before Assembly polls less than 8 months away, is dubbed as lacklustre over his government's alleged failure to live up to its words, including its poll promise to wipe off the drug menace from the border state. Amarinder rubbishes all this as opposition propaganda and expresses confidence in winning elections once again in 2022.

Amarinder knows how to aggrandise his footprints politically, even if it meant stirring a hornet nest. In 2004, he passed the controversial Punjab Termination Agreement Act that scrapped all water-sharing agreements with neighbouring states. He couldn’t care less about states that had been fighting over claims on the contentious Sutlej Yamuna Link canal project.

The announcement of debt waiver for farmers in Punjab was a revolutionary decision that factored in the revival of the Congress in Punjab five years ago ending a decade of the Akali-BJP rule. That the poll pledge has remained below the mark is a different story.

The soldier Amarinder remains alive all the time. Even when the chips were down amid resisting the coronation of Sidhu as Punjab Congress chief, Amarinder was seen shaking a leg and rejoicing with the soldiers of his Unit, 2nd battalion of the Sikh Regiment, to commemorate their 175th Raising Day over a week ago. Amarinder served as the ADC to the GOC-in-C (Western Command) and became an MP from Patiala constituency in 1980.

Amarinder is known for his candid views, addresses Rahul Gandhi as “Rahul” (his father Rajiv Gandhi and Amarinder were together in the elite-famed The Doon School in Dehradun) and minces no words when it comes to lambasting the Badals or even his own, including Sidhu.

He went public with his criticism of Sidhu over the controversial hug when the former cricketer embraced Army chief Gen Bajwa in Pakistan. Amarinder’s views on national security have matched those expressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, something which experts opine has been instrumental in halting the Modi juggernaut in Punjab. That he convincingly defeated BJP stalwart Arun Jaitley from Amritsar remains one of Amarinder's best feats in a Modi wave.

(The writer is a Punjab-based senior journalist)