Punjab Crisis | In the Singh-Sidhu battle, Congress is the real loser

Capt Amarinder Singh (File photo)

If anything can go wrong it will, says Murphy’s Law. For the Congress that aphorism seems to be the most apposite as we head towards a mid-September with some combustible aftershocks following the political developments in Punjab.

Frankly, it has been a downward slide for an inordinately long period for the grand old party, beginning with the Arvind Kejriwal-Anna Hazare anti-corruption movement (or was it a saffron-sponsored political masterstroke?) in Y2011. But that was 10 years ago. A decade, for heaven’s sake!

But the Congress seems to have learnt little during which the world transmogrified; Donald Trump became United States’ President, Novak Djokovic usurped tennis monarchy, Apple became the world’s most-valued company, and the COVID-19 pandemic upended the world as we knew it before the Wuhan vector pulverised it. But the Congress remains frozen in some time capsule. All it has done is to master kamikaze, the art of committing political suicide. Punjab is a manifestation of a party in a free-fall.

Former Punjab Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Captain Amarinder Singh and Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief Navjot Singh Sidhu have been at loggerheads for long. It has been discussed animatedly not just in private corridors, but all public platforms.

Politics can be claustrophobic; there is limited bandwidth to accommodate all personal ambitions in that haloed pyramid peak. Singh, who resigned as Chief Minister on September 18, is a no-nonsense man, possessing an erstwhile military uniformed officer’s penchant for orderly protocol. He overcame insurmountable headwinds of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on a roll in 2017, and an effervescent Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) that hoped to make a repeat of its spectacular triumph in Delhi to give the Congress a sliver of hope in a difficult spring (the BJP formed governments in all the remaining states where simultaneous elections were held — Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur).

The Captain, as Singh is referred to by many, had to give a virtual ultimatum to the Congress leadership to assume responsibilities of the Punjab campaign. His bellicosity was a risky venture, but he delivered. It was the political brand of the indefatigable fighter that humbled the BJP-Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) ruling alliance, and outsmarted a resurgent AAP.

But his electoral honeymoon and ‘Aye-Aye Captain’ phase was short-lived; he had the irrepressible Sidhu who was gunning for him, making no qualms of his intent to be his nemesis. The Captain’s worry was not the opposition, but a Trojan horse within.

This month, that story has come to its ineluctable conclusion. Five months before the assembly elections next year, Singh has resigned, citing public mortification at the demeaning manner in which he was treated. The immediate trigger was a meeting of the Congress legislature party that was ordered by the ‘High Command’ from Delhi, keeping the Chief Minister in the dark. It was frankly an outrageous act of chicanery. Singh called Sidhu ‘anti-national’ (sounds familiar?) and vowed to annihilate him. In the publicised pugilistic battles between Singh and Sidhu, it is the Congress which is the real loser.

Since its second successive knock-out in 2019, the Congress has been somnambulating from one disaster to another catastrophe. Karnataka, Puducherry and Madhya Pradesh were blithely surrendered to the BJP in an act of extraordinary benevolence. Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh are precariously placed at the precipice; in-fighting for the top job has paralysed effective government functioning. There is organisational torpor across the rank and file of the party, a luminous stasis that has metastasised into a monstrous size. The millions of party workers are demoralised. The Congress is rudderless, moribund.

The big elephant in the room is the Congress leadership. But questioning Rahul Gandhi is tantamount to sacrilege. The Captain apparently came to meet the de-facto Congress President in Delhi, but Gandhi studiously ignored him, treating him like a third shoe. It was bizarre; what was Gandhi so busy doing that he could not meet a man who was 80-years-old and sandbagging one of the few remaining Congress bastions? Sidhu was given license to make sardonic digs at the Captain, which he did with his usual flamboyant jibes to TV channels. It was just a matter of time before the ridiculously fragile patch-up between the two bitter foes would capsize. It has.

It is true that the BJP has struggled with internecine feuds in Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Bihar, and recently Gujarat as well. But it operates with ruthless resolve to not allow simmering discontent to reach alarming proportions. The Congress could have resolved the towering egos of both the obdurate Captain and a fractious Sidhu had it addressed the issue head-on. All that was needed was a frank face-to-face conversation to thrash out their personal insecurities once and for all. But instead it chose the monarchical style of trouble-shooting through courtiers, caucuses and committees. Failure was predestined.

A few months ago the Captain was seen dancing to the classic Mohammad Rafi-Suman Kalyanpur number “Aaj kal tere mere pyaar ke charche har jaban par”. Right now, that appears like a paradox.

Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.