India Narrative

  The fight for the chief minister’s post between Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu and Chief Minister Charanjit Channi came to the centrestage during senior leader Rahul Gandhi’s visit to the state on Thursday to kick off the party’s poll campaign. On the stage set in Jalandhar for the launching of the virtual campaign rally, in the presence of the senior leadership, the PPCC president Navjot Singh Sidhu and Chief Minister Charanjit Channi urged Rahul to declare the CM candidate of the Congress before the elections. Rahul who had come to launch the campaign by outlining the party’s  programme if it comes to power in the state, ended up mostly talking about the need to unitedly fight the election. He was also made to announce that very soon the Congress will declare its Chief Ministerial candidate be it Sidhu or Channi. Sunil Jakhar's name was not mentioned although until now the party had been saying that the election will be fought under the joint leadership of Sidhu, Chan

 The Congress party has not been able to get rid of dynastic politics as is evident from the allotment of tickets for the forthcoming Punjab Assembly elections. Almost all the ruling political families which had found representation in the successive Congress governments have again managed to get party tickets for their relatives to contest the assembly elections. There is considerable heartburn over the issue among genuine party workers who toiled for the party all these years and were expecting to contest in the polls as Congress candidates. Be it Navjot Singh Sidhu Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president, Sunil Jakkhar former PPCC president, Lal Singh former minister, Ravneet Bittu sitting MP and grandson of former Punjab Chief Minister the late Beant Singh, or Rajinder Kaur Bhattal former Chief Minister, all have managed to get their relatives tickets to contest as Congress candidates. In violation of the much propagated one-family one-ticket norm, the party has allotted