The intra-party rift over who will lead the Congress in Punjab has put Rahul Gandhi in a spot. With Captain Amrinder Singh refusing to budge from his demand that he be allowed to represent the party as chief ministerial candidate in the 2017 Assembly polls and take over from State Congress chief Pratap Singh Bajwa, Mr. Gandhi is trying hard to tame the growing anger within the party ranks that is once again drawing a wedge between the old and young cadres. Though the senior leadership in New Delhi is willing to field Capt. Singh, differences exist since he is asking for unbridled powers across the party’s rank and file.
“Capt. Singh wants to deploy Indira-style tactics,” a senior Congress leader told The Hindu , referring to the authoritative leadership of the former Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. “He feels the party has a weak command and the way to tighten it is to push his own people to higher posts.”
Last week, Mr. Gandhi held a series of meetings with Congress MLAs and party workers in New Delhi, seeking their opinions about Capt. Singh’s ability to lead. The young party leaders raised doubts about giving Capt. Singh a long rope. They warned Mr. Gandhi about the possible fallout in States like Haryana and Rajasthan where senior leaders have openly undermined the younger lot — some of whom are products of Mr. Gandhi’s Youth Congress activism. The differences between Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot have already come into the open after the latter was appointed chief of the Congress in Rajasthan.
ADVERTISEMENT
Capt. Singh crossed the line in September when he took a jibe at the scion of Gandhi dynasty and criticised his recent visit to a Dalit house. He continued to antagonise Mr. Gandhi with his threats to quit the party, which gave a handful of old Congressmen enough space to second-guess Mr. Gandhi’s ability to run the party. They mounted pressure on him to not let Capt. Singh have an overriding influence over the party high command. Since Mr. Gandhi is desperate to win Punjab, he now prefers a solution in which both Mr. Bajwa and Capt. Singh would be happy.
In the last few weeks, the senior leadership — led by Ahmed Patel and Jatinder Singh — have been trying hard to convince Capt. Singh to give up the idea of becoming the State party president.In return, they have agreed to have him as the party’s chief ministerial candidate and also given him a free hand in filling the posts of campaign committee president, working president and the senior vice-president.
Amrinder wants him to be announced CM candidate and State Congress chief