congress-misses-the-captain-after-25-years

The Congress high command is faced with an unprecedented predicament about leadership change in Punjab right now. For over a month, names are repeatedly being circulated “unofficially” to gauge the reaction. The party is yet to reach any decisive conclusion when the elections are scheduled about six months from now. The state assembly elections in Punjab are scheduled in January-February 2027 along with some other states including Uttar Pradesh.
 
For about twenty years, for five consecutive elections, the Congress never faced any such problem as it had one of the towering leaders Captain Amarinder Singh, always in reserve to lead it in the elections.

 

After Amarinder rejoined the Congress in 1998, he was appointed as the Punjab Congress president in 1999. Amarinder had earlier also resigned from the Congress and the parliament, in 1984 to protest against the Operation Bluestar. For 14 years, he spent some time with the Akali Dal and then formed his own party, eventually returning to the Congress in 1998 after Ms Sonia Gandhi took over as the Congress president. He again resigned from the Congress in 2021, after being removed unceremoniously as the Chief Minister of Punjab in a midnight coup.

 

Amarinder led the Congress consecutively in 2002, 2007, 2012 and 2017. He would have led in 2022 as well, but for the temptations of the party high command for cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu, who was desperate to lead the party, but led it to doom. After Amarinder was removed, Sidhu still could not become the Chief Minister. The party appointed Charanjit Singh Channi as the Chief Minister, just six months before the elections. What happened afterwards is history.

 

In hindsight, even the worst critics of Amarinder admit that had he been at the helm in 2022, the party would not have faced the rout at the hands of the Aam Aadmi Party. While some even claim that the party might have returned to power, others suggest that in the worst case scenario the Congress would have been the single largest party.

 

While in 2002, Amarinder was the PCC president, in 2007 he was the sitting Chief Minister. He narrowly lost to the Akali-BJP combine with the difference in the vote share remaining barely one percent. After the loss, he was replaced by his bête noir and former Chief Minister Ms Rajinder Kaur Bhattal as the PCC president. In the 2009 General Elections, he was made the chairman of the Campaign Committee of the party for Punjab. 

 

Just ahead of the 2012 assembly elections, he was again reappointed PCC president. However, the party lost once again to the Akali-BJP alliance again with a narrow difference in the vote percentage, although the difference in the seats was significant.

 

Amarinder was again removed as the PCC president and replaced by Partap Singh Bajwa, who was emerging as his likely political successor in Punjab. While many thought this to be the end of Amarinder’s career and people started writing his political obituaries, then came the 2014 General Elections.

 

Bajwa, in a shrewd move, prompted party high command to field Amarinder from Amritsar against Arun Jaiteley, the Akali-BJP candidate. It was a masterstroke, which though ultimately boomeranged on him, from Bajwa. He was confident that Amarinder would decline to contest, which he initially did.

 

He believed, even if he opted to contest, he would lose against the formidable Jaiteley, as odds were heavily in his favour. It was the Akali-BJP government in the state. The BJP was on ascendancy as there was a pro-BJP wave across the country. In both scenarios, as Bajwa visualised, it would have been the endgame for Amarinder.

 

As luck would have it, Amarinder, agreed to contest, although reluctantly. He emerged victorious against Jaiteley by a margin of over one lakh votes. In a complete turn of events, Bajwa, who was seeking re-election from the neighbouring Gurdaspur constituency lost to Vinod Khanna by a huge margin of about 1.3 lakh votes.

 

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That marked Amarinder’s comeback. He rose from the ashes in a proverbial manner. Immediately after his victory and Bajwa’s defeat, clamour started within the party in Punjab that he be reappointed as the PCC president for the obvious reason that he had defeated the BJP heavyweight, who was only second to Narendra Modi. Amarinder was again appointed the PCC president at the end of 2015. A year later, he led the party to an emphatic victory winning 77 seats.

 

When Amarinder was around, the Congress high command always had a clear and unambiguous option as to whom to appoint the PCC president. That is not the case right now. The party did not face any problem in 2022 also as Channi was the sitting Chief Minister and Navjot Sidhu was the PCC president appointed just a few months before Amarinder’s removal. But what happened in 2022 is a nightmarish example for the Congress high command. Neither Channi nor Sidhu could fill the vacuum created by Amarinder’s exit.

 

Once bitten twice shy. The Congress does not want to take a risk like the one it ended up taking, though unwittingly in 2022. It does not have any strong option like Amarinder. At the same time it has many claimants with claims, real or perceived, over a particular section of the voters. For Amarinder there were no sectarian divisions. He was a uniformly and universally acceptable leader by all sections of the society.

 

The party simply cannot find another ‘captain’ like him. No wonder his absence is actually being felt and he is badly missed. Most of the Congress leaders, even those who were instrumental in getting him removed, admit in private that he could have filled the vacuum and anchored the party far better than any other leader currently in the race for the party leadership.

 

While there were rumours about his possible return to the Congress, Amarinder made it categorically clear that he was going to be permanently with the BJP and there was no question of going back on his decision.