Congress's CM face: Sending out a strong message beyond Punjab

Tribune News Service

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, February 6

Last September when the Congress chose a low-profile and mild-mannered Charanjit Singh Channi as Punjab CM replacing the flamboyant royal Amarinder Singh, the party sent a strong message of empowering the Scheduled Castes.

Aiming revival of SC support base

• Congress hopes move will help boost sagging SC voter base in other states too. In Punjab, the Congress is aiming SC consolidation given their 31.9% share in population.
• In 2017, the party saw a 10% drop in SC Sikh vote. Channi is SC Sikh and the Congress seeks to recover this support base.

By announcing Channi as party’s CM face today, Rahul Gandhi walked the talk of strengthening the SC community, long neglected in Punjab. In a state where agrarian economy is shrinking and electoral equations dominated by Jat Sikhs changing, experts believe the occasion is ripe for political experiments. A research by Prof Surinder Jodhka, head of JNU’s Centre for the Study of Social Systems, reveals the percentage of people registered as cultivators was about 50 per cent in rural Punjab and 25 per cent in the entire state — a signal of a contracting agrarian economy, conventionally dominated by Jat Sikhs, who, in turn, also dominate the state’s electoral landscape.

But with Channi’s projection today, the Congress has managed to further its well-crafted strategy to appeal to the shrinking SC support base not just in Punjab, but also in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

In Punjab, the Congress is aiming massive SC consolidation given a 31.9 per cent share of the community in the state’s population (2011 Census) and the fact that the Congress won 23 of the 34 reserved segments in 2017. The party, however, recorded a 10 per cent drop in SC Sikh vote — from 51 per cent in 2012 to 41 per cent in 2017. Channi belongs to SC Sikhs who make up the bulk of Scheduled Castes in the state.

The Congress seeks to recover this lost support besides cementing its “pro-poor” narrative that Rahul Gandhi wove today, saying, “Everyone we consulted wanted that a leader from a humble background should be made the CM face, that Charanjit Singh Channi should be projected and I agree with that.”

The party hopes Channi’s projection will help its national ambitions too and boost the sagging SC voter base. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress had managed just about 26 per cent of the SC votes as against NDA’s 41 per cent.

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