SIGNALLING MORE trouble for the Congress ahead of the elections in Punjab, where the party faces infighting, Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi said on Tuesday that the party “should announce” its chief ministerial candidate. “Whenever the party has not announced the CM candidate, it has lost,” he said.
Channi made the remarks while responding to a question on whether the Congress should declare its CM candidate, during an interview to a local channel, Pro Punjab TV.
“When the party declared its CM candidate during the 2017 elections, it won. Before that, when it did not declare the candidate, it lost. Whenever the party has not announced the CM candidate, it has lost. So the party should announce it,” he said.
He went to say that he was a popular leader and people waved at him and broke barricades to meet him. Channi, however, refused to comment when asked who should be the CM candidate. He said the party would decide that.
Channi’s statement comes at a time when the Congress has made it clear that it will not declare its CM candidate ahead of the Assembly elections.
Till a few days ago, Punjab PCC chief Navjot Singh Sidhu was also pushing the party high command to announce the CM candidate. Sidhu has indicated that he should be declared the CM candidate, saying he has an agenda for Punjab and a roadmap to implement it. He has also said that the AAP lost the 2017 elections because it did not have a CM candidate.
While Sidhu has not raised the issue since Congress general secretary K C Venugopal held a meeting with three Cabinet ministers from Punjab last week, he officially launched his “Punjab Model” on Tuesday, and said it would be part of the party’s manifesto.
A PTI report also quoted Sidhu as saying that the people of Punjab would choose the CM, not the party high command. Responding to a question, he was quoted as saying: “Who told you that the high command will make the CM? … People of Punjab will elect MLAs and people of Punjab too will make the CM.”