Despite dissent, party going strong

Rajmeet Singh

Tribune news service

Chandigarh, April 22

The 2019 Lok Sabha polls are a litmus test for the Punjab Congress as well as Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh whose government completed two years in office recently. There is some disillusionment  among the youth with only low-wage jobs coming their way. Also there are murmurs of discontent within the party over allotment of ticket with OBCs and Dalits demanding ‘due’ share.

The Chief Minister is employing all his pursuading skills to placate sulking leaders and their supporters, a must if he has to accomplish ‘Mission 13’,  winning all 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab.

With a two-thirds majority in the 2017 Assembly elections and consecutive wins in byelections to the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha and Shahkot Assembly seats with huge margins, the Chief Minister, strengthened by a divided Opposition, continues to outsmart rivals within the party.

He has managed to secure the party ticket for his loyalists, marginalising factions within the party. As every seat counts in this fiercely contested General Election, the Congress central leadership has sent its star campaigner Navjot Singh Sidhu to other parts of the country to garner votes for the party, leaving it to the Chief Minister to captain the poll fight in Punjab.

Slow on rollout of development schemes and poll promises, the party aims to cash in on the emotive issue of sacrilege and police firing at Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura. “The party will highlight the anti-farmer policies stand of the Modi government. The dislike for the Akalis is all-pervasive”, claimed PPCC chief Sunil Jakhar, who is recontesting the Gurdaspur seat.

Confident of sweeping the polls, the party’s has fielded a non-Sikh, former MP Manish Tewari,  in Anandpur Sahib. A key concern for the leadership is the possibility of SAD’s revival in the eventuality of the Akalis winning the Bathinda and Ferozepur seats where Harsimrat and Sukhbir Badal are likely to be the nominees.

“The Congress has failed to put up a strong candidate on both seats. This could prove dear for the party,” observed a senior leader.