Congress’ Dalit card

In what is probably the Congress’ last roll of the dice before the Punjab Assembly elections, the party has picked Charanjit Singh Channi as the chief minister. He is the first Dalit to occupy the top post in the state, which accounts for the highest proportion (32 per cent) of the Scheduled Caste (SC) population in the country. One of Channi’s deputies, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, is a Jat Sikh, while the other, OP Soni, is a Hindu. Thus, the Congress has tried to tick all the caste boxes. Choosing a Dalit CM had become an electoral compulsion for the party after the Shiromani Akali Dal, which is contesting the 2022 polls together with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), promised that the alliance’s deputy CM would be from the SC community, while the BJP had announced to make a Dalit the CM, if voted to power in Punjab.

Referring emotionally to his humble origins, Channi is already busy projecting himself as the ‘aam aadmi’ a la AAP, a radical departure from what was perceived to be the overly bureaucratic functioning of his predecessor’s government. He doesn’t have much time to fulfil the pending poll promises, with the model code of conduct expected to be enforced by the year-end. More importantly, Channi’s job is to consolidate the SC vote — to the detriment of the rival parties’ poll prospects.

The key question is whether a Dalit CM is just a stop-gap arrangement for the Congress or a long-term commitment. The Opposition pounced on AICC general secretary Harish Rawat’s statement that the party’s election campaign would be spearheaded by Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu. BSP president Mayawati dubbed Channi’s elevation as an election stunt, claiming that the Congress was keen on a non-Dalit as the future CM. Even senior Congress leader Sunil Jakhar, who missed out on becoming the chief minister, stated that Rawat’s ‘baffling’ remark was likely to undermine the CM’s authority, forcing the high command to do some damage control. It will no doubt be a tightrope walk for the Congress, which is striving to fight anti-incumbency with a last-ditch change of guard.