PoliticsOpinion

Clueless Congress and the Punjab puzzle

The Congress central leadership continues to stay asleep as Punjab veteran Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi too exits the party stage

Punjab is turning out to be an irritant for the grand old party. The Indian National Congress leadership seems to have something or the other that causes a headache from the state every passing day.

Ever since the Congress High Command went from executing one mistake after another, Punjab’s Congress strength has been on the wane. Former chief minister and Congress strong man Capt. Amarinder Singh’s exit proved to be a major blow.

State Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu has been behaving like a wayward kid and has managed to throw away all chances that the Congress clung on to till late. The new Chief Minster Charanjit Singh Channi has been clueless with Sidhu calling all the shots.

Congress clueless as polls near

With all this happening, the party leadership in Delhi is still sleeping. The Assembly elections are round the bend in Punjab, and when voters line up to cast their franchise at polling booths in 2022, they are sure to have the Congress buffoonery playing in their minds.

Even as the Rahul-Sonia brigade continues to ignore the core issues in the party in Punjab, top leaders who have been mulling over a switchover have begun jumping the ship. Amarinder Singh’s exit has created a huge void in the party. Making matters worse, he has already proclaimed that his newly formed Punjab Lok Congress is a BJP ally.

Now, an Amarinder Singh loyalist has also decided to move on. Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi, Congress MLA and former sports minister, has switched allegiance to the BJP ahead of the polls. Though a senior leader, the Charanjit Channi cabinet had no place for him and he was indeed vexed.

Sodhi jumps ship, joins BJP

Sodhi took to Twitter to announce his resignation from the Congress fold. He did not hide his emotions at being “deeply hurt by the constant bickering and infighting” in the Punjab Congress.

He tweeted thus:

A party veteran who had been in active politics since 1972, Sodhi had become MLA in 2002 and won successive polls in 2007, 2012 and 2017. In 2018, he served as Congress chief whip too. However, all these didn’t count for Sonia, Rahul and the Congress powers that be. The constant bickering inside the party finally made Sodhi decide on his future.

And he did just that.

With the leaders switching sides, the Congress party in Punjab has a lot at stake. The 2022 Assembly elections are not far away. The Aam Admi Party led by Arvind Kejriwal is leaving no stone unturned, so that it could make inroads into Punjab. Amarinder Singh’s Punjab Lok Congress aligning with the BJP could turn out to be a major force. The BJP will see to it that it wouldn’t lose Punjab in 2022, come what may.

In the meanwhile, the Congress central leadership is still sleeping. Little do the party’s leaders realise that going solely by what Navjot Sidhu says could get them hit for a six.

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Sanjeev Ramachandran

A journalist with 23 years of experience, Sanjeev has worked with reputed media houses such as Business Standard, The Ne More »
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