Amid all the hul­la­baloo over Navjot Singh Sid­hu’s res­ig­na­tion from Pun­jab Con­gress’s pres­i­dentship, an ex­plo­sive elec­tion cam­paign move an­nounced by Pun­jab CM Cha­ran­jit Singh Channi to­day largely went un­no­ticed as the me­dia corps
got overex­cited about seek­ing re­ac­tions to the lat­est twist in the party. WSN ex­plains the strat­egy aimed at un­der­play­ing Sid­hu’s res­ig­na­tion and plac­ing the new Pun­jab Chief Min­is­ter as the leader of the Con­gress for the forth­com­ing polls in 2022.

PUN­JAB CHIEF MIN­IS­TER CHA­RAN­JIT SINGH CHANNI, at a press con­fer­ence in Chandi­garh to­day an­nounced that he will soon lead a mas­sive march of lakhs of peo­ple to­wards Delhi to de­mand the re­peal of the three con­tro­ver­sial farm leg­is­la­tion.

“I will lead the march, we will sleep en route in the fields of the farm­ers, and will go and sit at the doorstep of the prime min­is­ter, to press for the de­mand,” he said.

With this lat­est salvo, Cha­ran­jit Singh Channi is mak­ing se­ri­ous at­tempts to prove to be a far more sea­soned leader of the party as any such “mil­lion peo­ple march” on Delhi will snatch the po­lit­i­cal ini­tia­tive from the farm unions.

A source close to the CM said the idea be­hind the march on Delhi is to trig­ger a
mas­sive po­lit­i­cal mo­bil­i­sa­tion ac­tiv­ity that will lu­bri­cate the party ma­chin­ery, but
with­out falling foul of the Samyukt Kisan Mor­cha’s dik­tat to the par­ties not to
un­der­take poll ral­lies.

For the mo­ment, Channi is play­ing it much bet­ter than Sidhu, though the game has some other tricky play­ers.

“At a time when Akali Dal supremo Sukhbir Singh Badal, who was forced to drop the idea of scores of ral­lies in a 100-day cam­paign run is plan­ning a trac­tor march from
Mo­hali to Chandi­garh, Channi has come up with a strat­egy de­signed to at­tract the
na­tional gaze. The idea is to mar­shall the ki­netic en­ergy re­leased into the po­lit­i­cal
sys­tem by the SKM An­dolan,” the source said.

If Channi in­deed mar­shalls a cou­ple of lakh peo­ple, or even a few thou­sand, for his march to Delhi, the pic­tures of him spend­ing nights in the fields, chat­ting to farm­ers and sleep­ing on their cots, and even­tu­ally reach­ing Delhi and cul­mi­nat­ing in a ma­jor rally, he would have proven him­self to be a much more valu­able as­set for the Con­gress — a sea­soned leader with SC cre­den­tials and a hum­ble Sikh face who could gel with the ‘aam aadmi.’

The sheer scale of the march will be enough to help the party tide over the set­back it has re­ceived due to Navjot Singh Sid­hu’s res­ig­na­tion, as the fran­tic pace of the news cy­cle will make Sid­hu’s res­ig­na­tion stale news very fast, the source said.

Also, such a ma­jor po­lit­i­cal ac­tiv­ity will es­tab­lish Channi as a leader in his own right, be­sides giv­ing him and the party enough op­por­tu­ni­ties and time to stress his SC cre­den­tials.

Even at the press con­fer­ence in Chandi­garh on Tues­day, min­utes af­ter Sid­hu’s
res­ig­na­tion, Channi spent con­sid­er­able time nar­rat­ing his own ex­pe­ri­ence and
telling sto­ries about his vis­its to the homes and fam­i­lies of farm sui­cide vic­tims.
“I have been to houses that had no roof, where the earn­ing mem­ber had com­mit­ted
sui­cide. If you were there, you would have cried with me, too,” he said.

Chan­ni’s strat­egy of pro­ject­ing him­self as the real ‘Aam Aad­mi’, open­ing the gates of
the Pun­jab Civil Sec­re­tariat to panches, sarpanches and other elected
rep­re­sen­ta­tives, meet­ing com­mon peo­ple, shar­ing meals with the poor and the hoi
pol­loi are all aimed at pro­ject­ing his per­sona as a hum­ble leader.

Con­gress lead­ers like Ravneet Singh Bittu seemed rather happy at Sid­hu’s
res­ig­na­tion, and with lit­tle love lost be­tween Sidhu and Sukhjin­der Singh Rand­hawa
and many se­nior lead­ers, there is lit­tle chance that the Pun­jab state lead­er­ship of
the party will be dy­ing to bring back Sidhu, or that he will be able to gain the kind of
promi­nence, that he was look­ing for.

Con­gress lead­ers like Ravneet Singh Bittu seemed rather happy at Sid­hu’s res­ig­na­tion.

If Channi in­deed mar­shalls a cou­ple of lakh peo­ple, or even a few thou­sand, for his
march to Delhi, the pic­tures of him spend­ing nights in the fields, chat­ting to farm­ers
and sleep­ing on their cots, and even­tu­ally reach­ing Delhi and cul­mi­nat­ing in a ma­jor rally, he would have proven him­self to be a much more valu­able as­set for the
Con­gress — a sea­soned leader with SC cre­den­tials and a hum­ble Sikh face who
could gel with the ‘aam aadmi.’

It’s the kind of chal­lenge that will con­fuse Arvind Ke­jri­wal no end. It was eas­ier to at­tack Sidhu; it’s a tough chal­lenge to abuse some­one who’s hardly got the op­por­tu­nity plus who seem­ingly means well.

For the mo­ment, Channi is play­ing it much bet­ter than Sidhu, though the game has
some other tricky play­ers. As the clock ticks to­wards the 2022 elec­tions, Pun­jab’s
pol­i­tics and the on­go­ing Kisan An­dolan could go par­al­lel, may in­ter­sect and even
col­lide.