Congress unlikely to announce CM face for Punjab Assembly polls

By Siddharth Sharma
New Delhi [India], December 25 : In a big move ahead of Punjab Assembly polls, the Congress party is unlikely to announce a chief ministerial face of the party for the state elections and is likely to opt for collective leadership.
According to sources in the party, deliberations are going on to take a final call on this. It is a tough decision for the ruling Congress as the party made a change of guard in September by giving the command of the state to Charanjit Singh Channi, Punjab's first Dalit chief minister.
However, the majority of state leaders believe that the party should choose collective leadership to balance the caste equations in the state.
Ahead of polls, the screening committee of Congress in Punjab has held several rounds of meetings with the state leaders, ministers, MLAs and MPs.
One of the party leaders, on maintaining anonymity told ANI that they have expressed their desire to party top leaders that the party should go for collective leadership in upcoming polls.
With this move, the party is seemingly avoiding the risk of vote polarisation as Channi, being a Dalit face as the chief minister, is likely to garner votes from the Dalit community but a sizeably larger population of voters also consists of Jat Sikhs and Hindus.
Notably, the party has placed its top faces in a combination of castes by appointing Navjot Singh Sidhu, who is a Jat Sikh, as the president of the Punjab Congress and Sunil Jakhar, who is a Jat, as chief of the election campaign committee.
Deputy Chief Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa is a Jat Sikh, while another Deputy Chief Minister OP Soni comes from a Hindu community.
It is also important to be noted that Sunil Jakhar has been included in the screening committee for the Punjab polls though a good campaign committee chairman was never used to get the berth in the screening committee earlier.
The Congress party is also doing a survey on a seat-by-seat basis for the selection of the candidates. Till now, two meetings of the screening committee have been held in the national capital for the selection of the candidates. The party has also adopted 'one family, one ticket' policy for the polls.
State Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu has already made it clear that the candidates will be given tickets based on merit.
"Congress is a secular party in which discussions and debates are properly conducted. It has been decided to give tickets keeping in view the merit. Tickets will be given to the winning candidates. Congress is a secular party that follows a proper procedure. Tickets will be given on merit," Sidhu told reporters.