Problems of Congress in Punjab go much beyond Amarinder-Sidhu clash

Till a few months back, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh appeared to have had the better of his opponents, both within and outside his party. He drew confidence from the Congress's landslide victory in the local body polls. The farmers' issue had dealt a blow to the Akali Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party. The Aam Aadmi Party was a much weakened force.

So confident was Amarinder that soon after the local body results were out, the state Congress began a campaign for next year's Assembly elections called 'Captain for 2022'. It was a perfect opportunity for the veteran leader to pre-empt his detractors, especially Navjot Singh Sidhu.

However, a court order in April changed the scenario dramatically. On April 9, the Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed the reports of the special investigation team set up by the Amarinder government to probe the police firing in 2015 in Kotkapura on people protesting against alleged sacrilege of Sikh religious scriptures.

The sacrilege issue is an emotive one for Punjab, and it was a major election plank for the Congress in 2017. Three incidents of alleged desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib had been reported in Faridkot district in 2015. In the subsequent protests, two people had died in police firing.

The court order proved to be a turning point for Amarinder. It energised his detractors. If Sidhu has been the most vociferous, his statements have found resonance with several other Amarinder baiters in the state Congress, such as Pargat Singh, Ravneet Singh Bittu, Pratap Singh Bajwa, Shamsher Singh Dullo and ministers Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and Charanjit Singh Channi. There is anxiety even among Amarinder’s supporters about the impact of the court judgment.

The maverick Sidhu, lying low for several months, is back with a bang. The captain's calm confidence has been upset by the renewed onslaught from the cricketer-turned-politician, although the problems of the party go much beyond the battle royale between the two Sardars from Patiala.

Amarinder had not been in favour of Sidhu being brought into the party on the eve of the 2017 Assembly elections. Amarinder saw Sidhu as a potential challenger. It was not lost on him that Sidhu aspired to succeed him since it was felt that the veteran could soon be hanging up his boots.

However, Amarinder cut the Amritsar East MLA down to size, giving him low-profile portfolios in his cabinet. Amid a furore over Sidhu hugging the Pakistan Army chief Qamar Ahmed Bajwa at the swearing-in ceremony of Imran Khan in August 2018, Amarinder had publically objected against it. When that same year in November, Sidhu visited Pakistan again, Amarinder said he had asked him not to go there in view of the terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir.

Amarinder went on to further downgrade Sidhu in his cabinet, taking away the local government portfolio from him. The poor performance of the party in urban areas in the Lok Sabha polls was cited as a reason. Sidhu resigned from the cabinet in July 2019 and went into a sulk. However, the party high command was keen that he be brought back into the mainstream.

AICC general secretary Harish Rawat managed to bring Sidhu on board in the protests led by former party chief Rahul Gandhi against the new farm laws in October 2020. As the central leadership nudged the two leaders to end their mutual hostilities, Amarinder hosted Sidhu at his farmhouse near Chandigarh in November 2020, the luncheon meeting setting off speculation about Sidhu's return to the cabinet. There was another meeting between the two in March this year, this time over tea, but there was no breakthrough. Sidhu was said to be dissatisfied with the portfolios offered to him, and Amarinder was against giving him any high-profile role.

Sidhu has hit back after the court order. He said Amarinder was a liar and accused him of helping the Badals in the sacrilege case. He said Amarinder was the 'system' against which he was agitating.

The power tussle got keener as Sidhu shifted to his ancestral house in Patiala, in an apparent dare to the chief minister. Posters came up in the city, declaring Sara Punjab Sidhu de Naal (Entire Punjab is with Sidhu). The Amarinder camp responded by putting up posters saying Captain Te Ek Hi Honda Hai (There can be only one captain). The verbal warfare saw Amarinder daring Sidhu to contest from Patiala, and Sidhu responding with the idiom 'big boast, small roast'.

The central leadership, rushing to douse the fire, set up a three-member committee headed by leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge and comprising Rawat and senior leader J.P. Aggarwal. The committee—after meeting MLAs, ministers and other leaders from the state, including Amarinder and Sidhu—concluded in its report, which was submitted to Congress president Sonia Gandhi that unkept promises, mainly on the sacrilege and drugs issues, could have an impact in the elections. It said there was no need to replace Amarinder as chief minister, but Sidhu had to be suitably accommodated.

While one of the options proposed is appointing Sidhu as deputy chief minister, Amarinder is learnt to be opposed to it. Sidhu too is not keen to work under Amarinder. He is said to be interested in the post of state Congress president, but Amarinder is not expected to agree to it. Even Amarinder's detractors are not in favour of Sidhu being given the post of PCC chief.

“Old, traditional Congress leaders should be given a greater role in reviving the party. They are sidelined by leaders who have come from outside,” said Dullo, also describing both Amarinder and Sidhu as outsiders.

According to a senior AICC leader involved in the Punjab discussions, many roles were discussed for Sidhu, including that of campaign committee chief in the elections. An often-asked question in political circles is why does the central leadership of the Congress, more specifically the Gandhi siblings, give so much importance to Sidhu even as he has gone ballistic against the party's own government. That Sidhu could say so much against Amarinder and the party dithered on calling it indiscipline, rather saying he had raised valid issues, supports the view that the Gandhis have his back.

“We have taken cognisance of the issues raised by Sidhu. There are organisational and political issues involved, which have been dealt with in our report submitted to the Congress president,” Rawat said.

A reason why Sidhu is valued despite his limited support base in the state Congress is his immense popularity on the ground. The former cricketer, known for his facility with language and powerful oratory, had made a mark as a TV personality and enjoys celebrity status. He has tremendous value as a crowd-puller. Rawat has in the past called him 'Congress' Rafale', or an important election weapon. Sidhu though has expressed his ire over “being used as a mere showpiece during elections that is put back in the cupboard once the polls are over”. A Jat Sikh like Amarinder but much younger at 59 years, Sidhu is said to have a following among the youth in the community. He has the image of being an honest person. And he has been strident in his attacks against the Badals.

Moreover, a view among Amarinder's supporters is that Sidhu, known for his direct access to Rahul and Priyanka, has been used by them as a counterweight to the chief minister. Rahul had favoured Amarinder's then detractor-in-chief Bajwa ahead of the 2017 state polls, and it was only after Amarinder had demonstrated his support among the MLAs and even threatened to quit the Congress that he got to lead the party into the elections. Also, while Bajwa and Dullo have been regularly going public against Amarinder, the party has chosen to give them important assignments.

“If the party leadership is planning ahead and wants to create options for the future, there is nothing wrong in that,” said a senior Congress leader involved in the Punjab discussions.

However, the intrigue over the 'meeting that wasn't' between Sidhu and Rahul on June 29 has added a twist to the Punjab saga while indicating that it will not be easy for the Gandhis to solve the Sidhu problem. In a curious turn of events, Sidhu had left his Patiala home on the morning of June 29, his aides claiming he would meet Rahul, and possibly Priyanka too, in Delhi. However, Rahul told reporters waiting outside his residence that no such meeting was scheduled. Sources close to Rawat said he was not aware of any such meeting being planned. However, it is interesting to note that even as it was widely reported that Sidhu was to meet the Gandhis in Delhi, there was no denial throughout the day either from Sidhu or from Rahul's office. The media had pestered both to know the exact time of the meeting. Sidhu did meet Priyanka at her residence on June 30. A senior leader said Rahul meeting Sidhu while Amarinder had not met the Gandhis during his visit to the capital would have sent a wrong message.

The drama plays out amid speculation whether Sidhu is considering the AAP option. While AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal may not like to have a fiercely independent and unpredictable person like Sidhu in the party, there is the temptation of setting up an Amarinder versus Sidhu contest that would bring the AAP back into the game. Kejriwal had recently announced that the party would have a Sikh as its CM face in the state.

Meanwhile, Amarinder's supporters feel the 79-year-old leader, one of the only three chief ministers that the party has, is having to deal with a reset in his equation with the party high command, and there has been a perceptible effort to downsize him. They point out that the Congress came to power in the state in 2017 only on the basis of Amarinder's popularity. The series of election victories, including in the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, is attributed to him.

Being called to Delhi twice to appear before the Kharge-led panel and handed a to-do list of tasks to be completed within a fixed time-frame has been viewed a snub to Amarinder. Kharge even said that the party will go into elections under the leadership of Sonia and Rahul, making it doubtful if Amarinder will be the chief ministerial face. Also, if he had wanted a free hand in the coming elections, he now stares at the prospect of going into polls under the looming shadow of his detractors, who are now expected to have a greater say in ticket distribution and election strategy.

However, Rawat said the list of tasks to be completed by the Amarinder government was prepared in a consensual manner. “The chief minister was very much a part of the discussions. And he too agreed on the need to implement certain promises in a time-bound manner,” he said.

A senior leader said that while the issue to begin with may have been the fight between Amarinder and Sidhu, it did throw light on a number of issues that the party has to deal with before elections, including the free power promise, action against liquor mafia, sand and transport mafia, loan waivers and scholarships for dalits as also job promises.

Amarinder has also sought to control the damage, reaching out to legislators and getting in touch with his detractors. His move to offer jobs to the sons of two former MLAs in recognition of their grandfathers losing their lives in the fight against terrorism was seen as part of this exercise, and was termed ill-advised even by his supporters.

Asked if there was enough time to deliver on the promises made in the previous election, state Congress president Sunil Jakhar said while using the term 'deadline' was wrong, the government must address the sacrilege and the drugs issues. “People want closure. It is our moral duty to fulfil our promises on these two issues,” he said.

However, as the Congress struggles to set its house in order, it may have allowed its rivals, the Akalis and the AAP, to re-enter the contest.