Punjab Congress unity bid falters as Channi camp demands Warring’s removal

It was billed as a please-all gesture by the Congress high command meant to showcase unity and collective leadership ahead of next year’s Punjab Assembly polls. Less than 48 hours later, however, the Congress central leadership’s decision to retain Amarinder Singh Raja Warring as the party’s Punjab unit chief while assigning various election-related roles to his intra-party rivals has triggered an open rebellion.

Also read | Congress misreads Punjab again; ‘revamp’ shows leadership’s fear of cracking the whip

On Friday (July 3), former Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, who was appointed chairperson of the party’s election campaign committee on Wednesday, convened a meeting of his supporters at his Morinda residence. Sources say over 60 party leaders from across Punjab, several incumbent and former MLAs among them, turned up.

Appointments spark fresh dissent

As the meeting concluded, many of them, including party veterans Tripat Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Bharat Bhushan Ashu and Rana Gurjeet Singh, publicly appealed to the Congress high command to replace Warring with Channi. Some others like former MLA Darshan Singh Brar, once a vocal Channi critic, went a step further to claim that the Congress “will not win the (upcoming) election under Raja Warring’s leadership… the people want Channi to lead.”

In Delhi, Gurdaspur MP Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, who too had been eyeing Warring’s job but was appointed chairperson of the party’s Punjab core committee, also went public with his discontent over the slew of appointments announced on July 1. Randhawa said it was “deeply unfortunate” that the appointments made after extensive consultations between the Punjab Congress leaders and the party high command had still triggered “so much dissatisfaction”.

On July 1, after over two months of deliberations, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge approved the constitution of several election-related committees for Punjab. While Raja Warring and Partap Singh Bajwa were retained as state unit chief and Leader of Opposition in the Punjab Assembly, respectively, other factional chiefs were assigned roles in these committees.

High command’s balancing act

Channi was tasked with leading the party’s campaign, Randhawa as head of the core committee, Vijay Inder Singla as chief of the party’s election management and coordination panel and Fatehgarh Sahib MP Amar Singh as chairperson of the manifesto committee.

Patiala MP Dharamvira Gandhi, Amritsar MP Gurjeet Singh Aujla, senior state leaders Sukhwinder Singh Danny, Raj Kumar Verka, Sangat Singh Gilzian, Sukhpal Singh Khaira, Rana Gurjeet Singh, Pargat Singh, Razia Sultana, Angad Singh Saini, Bharat Bhushan Ashu, OP Soni, Hardial Singh Kamboj, Kuljit Singh Nagra and Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria were also accommodated as co-chairpersons of various poll panels.

The high command had hoped that by assigning key roles to Channi, Randhawa and Singla – all vying for the party chief’s post and known to share frosty relations with Raja Warring – it could bring a semblance of collective leadership and gloss over the deep factional divisions within the Punjab unit ahead of the elections due in February-March 2027. Signs that the balancing act had failed miserably were evident almost immediately. With the exception of Raja Warring and Singla, none of the other key leaders expressed the obligatory gratitude to the high command for assigning them their new tasks.

Also read | 'Being skilled is a flaw': Manish Tewari's cryptic post after Congress Punjab poll team snub

The silence broke after 48 hours on Friday with Channi calling his supporters to his Morinda residence in what was clearly both a show of strength and an act of defiance, and Randhawa going public with his dissatisfaction in Delhi following a pre-scheduled meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

Channi camp flexes muscles

Fatehgarh Churian MLA and former Punjab minister Tripat Rajinder Singh Bajwa, who is currently part of the Channi faction, told reporters that the leaders gathered at the former CM’s Morinda residence had decided to reach out to the Congress high command once again. “We have some objections and we want to speak to high command once again. We want them to hear and sort out our grievances,” he said while asserting that the meeting called by Channi should not be seen as a rebellion against the high command.

Sources close to Channi, who had been handpicked by Rahul Gandhi back in 2021 to replace Captain Amarinder Singh as Punjab’s first ever Dalit Sikh CM, told The Federal that the Jalandhar MP felt his role as chief of the campaign committee is “meaningless till the time Raja Warring is party chief”.

“What message do these appointments send to the voter? The party has lost every Assembly and parliamentary bypoll in Punjab under Raja Warring’s leadership since April 2022. In the recent municipal polls, the Congress could win only two of the 19 wards in Gidderbaha (Raja Warring’s home turf and Assembly constituency he represented thrice) while the party swept the council polls in Chamkaur (Channi’s former assembly seat). The people want Channi to lead. All our internal surveys also show his popularity has been increasing. If he is going to lead the campaign but Raja Warring is going to lead the party, won’t it confuse voters about who they would get as chief minister if the party wins?,” a Congress MLA who attended Channi’s meeting on Friday told The Federal.

Congress leader and father of slain Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala, Balkaur Singh, who is also part of the Channi faction, said the party leaders gathered in Morinda had “authorised” Channi to “form a delegation that will meet the high command and urge that the appointments made (on July 1) be reconsidered.”

Resistance derailed Channi’s bid

As reported earlier by The Federal, the Congress high command had reportedly “almost finalised” Channi’s name for Punjab Congress chief last month based on “independently conducted assessment of public mood”. What hit Channi’s prospects, however, was “strong resistance” from leaders like Raja Warring, Partap Singh Bajwa, Randhawa and others.

A Punjab Congress leader who was part of the discussions held with the high command had told The Federal that at least two senior party MPs implored Rahul against appointing Channi as the state unit chief. These MPs argued that if appointed party chief Channi could become a liability for the party due to his penchant for making controversial remarks and, more importantly, as he is still being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate and the state vigilance bureau in different cases, which both BJP and AAP could use to target not just him but the Congress during the elections.

The anti-Channi camp is also said to have reminded the high command that the former CM had not just lost both the Assembly constituencies – Chamkaur Sahib and Bhadaur – he contested from in 2022 but had also “disappeared for several months” immediately after the Congress’s defeat instead of staying in Punjab to rebuild the party.

Damage control faces hurdles

With senior leaders rallying against his appointment as state unit chief, the high command chose to cast aside the party’s own internal ground-level surveys which had signalled a shift in public mood in Channi’s favour. As a result, what the high command finalised on July 1 turned into a poor equilibrant of conflicting leadership claims – Raja Warring leading the party unit, Bajwa leading the legislative party and Channi leading the campaign.

Also read | Punjab: Can Mann’s women cash scheme offset Akal Takht row?

Sources in the AICC say the high command is open to further dialogue with the Punjab unit. Former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, who is currently the party’s Punjab in-charge, has been directed to reach out to Channi, Randhawa and other disgruntled leaders. The damage control exercise, however, is unlikely to resolve the crisis since, as per party insiders, the Channi faction blames Baghel for convincing the high command to let Raja Warring continue as Punjab Congress chief.

Congress leaders in Punjab believe the high command's inability to resolve the Punjab turf war could derail the party’s poll campaign in the state even before it starts. This comes even as the ruling AAP, under Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, battles mounting political challenges on multiple fronts, including a deeply consequential face-off with the Akal Takht, the highest temporal authority of Sikhism, which should have ideally given the Congress the munitions it needed to launch its poll blitzkrieg.