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

  Punjab Pradesh Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu has failed in his attempt to keep out tainted leaders from getting tickets to contest  the state assembly elections as the names of several party candidates announced by the party in its first list are either facing charges of corruption or are allegedly involved in scams. However, all these tainted candidates deny the allegations levelled against them. Sham Sundar Arora, in the poll fray from Hoshiarpur, faced allegations of selling government land worth several crores to a private party at a throwaway price. He was at the time the Industries minister in the Captain Amarinder Singh government. He was dropped from the cabinet by the new incumbent Charanjit Singh Channi. Former minister Balbir Sidhu contesting from Mohali has been accused of grabbing government land in villages besides the tiles scandal. Navtej Cheema fielded from Sultanpur Lodhi, too, is a tainted name as he was accused of misappropriating the funds of a religious