Manish Tewari emphasises Punjab's syncretic identity, says 'internal contradictions' reason for Congress debacle in 2022 assembly polls

New Delhi [India], January 5 : Congress leader Manish Tewari on Thursday pitched for the selection of a chief ministerial candidate on the basis of "merit and competence" and said "internal contradictions" contributed to the party's defeat in the Punjab assembly polls in 2022.
Participating in a discussion on the book 'Punjab - From the Perspective of a Punjabi Hindu', the Congress leader emphasised on "syncretic identity" of Punjab and said it should be preserved to thwart the designs of the country's enemies.
"Ethos of Punjab is essentially summed up by Punjab, Punjabi and Punjabiyat... It subsumes various ethnic identities," he said.
Tewari said that the cultural evolution of Punjab after 1947 created Punjabi identity, which "in my mind is an indivisible identity".
"To try and divide this identity is fraught with great risk to national security because this is what Pakistan wants...There are only a few States left where this indivisible identity across communities still remains, those paradoxically are the two States which were partitioned by the British- Punjab and West Bengal," he said.
The book is written by Vinayak Dutt, who has been a journalist and a poll-strategist.
Tewari, who is an MP from Anandpur Sahib, also asked if Punjab had been compensated for the pain it suffered during the partition.
"There is also a question of apparent injustice to Punjab that continues to be unresolved, for example, Punjab had to face the brunt of the partition of India. Was Punjab ever adequately compensated for the tragedy they were going through? Punjab has been in the vanguard of the three wars that we fought in 1965, 1971 even in 1999...," he said.
"Even today in counter-insurgency situation, maximum body bags come back to Punjab. There is a tehsil in my constituency that has the highest per capita contribution to the Indian armed forces out of any tehsil in India and unfortunately, not a single month passes when there are not one or two funerals that take place in...sub division," he added.
He also referred to the debt the state incurred during the years of fighting militancy and Pakistan's constant attempts to create trouble in the state.
"...the sense of injustice, persecution, neglect all that gets combined into a feeling of 'we are not getting our due'...that is not something which is peculiar to the Sikh community, that is a general feeling in Punjab that we have not got our due, that what Punjab has contributed and what Punjab has suffered going back to 1947...," he said.
Poll strategist Naresh Arora, who was also on the panel, referred to the wranglings in Punjab Congress in the run-up to the assembly polls in 2022, with the party eventually choosing Charanjit Singh Channi, who belongs to the Dalit community, as its face, though other names were also in the contention. The Congress lost the assembly polls to Aam Aadmi Party.
"Despite Punjab having the highest number of people in the community which Mr Channi represented, the results are here," Arora said.
Tewari referred to incumbent governments in Punjab largely being voted out.
"I have nothing personal against anybody... But the gentleman who was dreaming of chief ministership in the name of being a Hindu and later on left and went to another party, I asked him what he ever did for the Hindu community to ask for chief ministership in their name...In fact, he was the worst enemy of Punjabiyat by trying to create this division," Tewari alleged, referring to former Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar who later left the party and joined BJP.
"I don't think the rejection of Congress because there was a Dalit chief minister, the rejection was partly because Punjab had this five-year tradition that was broken by the Akali Dal, and there were internal contradictions within the Congress that facilitated the result which came in March 2022," Tewari added.
Vinayak Dutt said many personalities from Punjab, who contributed to the state and country's progress, had not got their due recognition.
Speaking of the significance of the land of Punjab, he said, "original version of Ramayana came from the State" and Gita Sandesh came from Kurukshetra which was part of undivided Punjab.
Sumail Singh Sidhu, who teaches at Ambedkar University here, also took part in the discussion.