AMARINDER LIKELY TO HOLD WORKERS’ MEETING IN DELHI

In an obvious attempt to entice Congress activists to join his proposed new political party, former Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh is likely to convene a workers’ conclave in Delhi in the coming week. The erstwhile soldier is essentially banking on sitting MLAs, who may be denied renomination by Congress to meet him to discuss the current situation in the border state. He appears to be in no tearing hurry to resign from the grand old party while simultaneously working to weaken it from within. The strategy is clear that being a part of the Congress, he can always continue to meet his colleagues and fellow MLAs, and if the High Command was to act against him, the only action possible could be expulsion. This would also suit him since he would continue to be a member of the legislative assembly and can participate in the deliberations of the Assembly whenever it meets. The anticipation is that taking advantage of the intense infighting, the Captain may ask the Charanjit Singh Channi government to take the floor test at an appropriate time. The Workers meet in the national capital is designed to test the loyalty of some of those who benefitted from their association with him in the nine and half years he remained the Chief Minister. It is also to assess his own strengths and weaknesses before he floats his own party, the blueprint of which is ready. The battle-hardened Captain is likely to launch a twin attack on the Congress. The first would be to ensure that it is weakened from within and the second to put his own party on a firm footing. Unconfirmed reports from Punjab suggest that there were as many as 20 MLAs, who were expected to meet him in Delhi this week. Whether this happens or not would depend on how the Central leadership of the Congress is able to rein in various factions, which are working against each other. On Sunday, Pradesh president, Navjot Singh Sidhu lashed out at his own government and reminded the Chief Minister and his Cabinet that the real issues were being swept under the carpet while unimportant matters were getting undue attention. Anandpur Saheb MP, Manish Tewari also referred to the infighting and stated that he had not seen such chaos in the 40 years he has been with the Congress. He questioned the wisdom of those who constituted the three-member committee headed by Malikarjun Kharge to hear out the grievances of the MLAs. The exercise finally resulted in Amarinder being ousted. The Congress versus Congress war is only hurting the party and by introducing the element of personal attacks on the former CM, the political waters have been muddied further. Sidhu’s wife, Navjot Kaur Sidhu continued her attack on Aroosa Alam, the Captain’s Pakistani companion and stated that she used her proximity with the former Chief Minister to get important postings done after receiving expensive gifts. Aroosa on her part told a news channel on Saturday that the photograph of hers with Sonia Gandhi, released by the Amarinder camp was from 2005, a year before she met the Captain. A lot of stories regarding Aroosa are doing the rounds in political circles and they are not helping anyone. Congress as in other states is totally unprepared to dictate the political agenda and the astute and perceptive Captain is certainly going to take advantage of this vacuum. However, for Amarinder to succeed in his designs, he would have to somehow get the farmers on his side. Without the peasants’ support, his political party would be a non-starter. Therefore, the speculation is that he might meet the Prime Minister before Narendra Modi leaves for Europe by the weekend and discuss the farm laws. Amarinder has to play his cards properly and should remember that actions driven by anger do not necessarily lead to political dividends.