IN A STATE OF FLUX

DEFECTIONS AND INTERNAL SQUABBLES BECOME A NORM AS PUNJAB GEARS UP FOR A QUADRANGULAR CONTEST UNDER THE SHADOW OF UNRESOLVED LEGACY ISSUES

- ANILESH S. MAHAJAN

ACCUSTOMED TO QUIET LAIDBACK SUNDAY AFTERNOONS, the residents of Thammanwal village, in the Nakodar assembly segment, were taken aback at the unusual burst of activity in late April. It was former Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi grappling with the fallout of Karamjit Kaur Chaudhary-wife of former Jalandhar MP, the late Santokh Singh Chaudhary-defecting to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Addressing a hurriedly convened meeting, Channi, who is the Congress's Lok Sabha candidate from Jalandhar, sought to pacify disgruntled delegates, mostly from the Phillaur segment, represented by Karamjit's son Vikramjit. (The latter has since been suspended from all party posts.) Miles away, in Patiala, Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring was also engaged in damage control, persuading local leaders to accept the high command's decision to field former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MP Dharamvir Gandhi, whose radical Leftist ideas have left many in the party uncomfortable.

The political landscape of Punjab finds itself in a perpetual state of flux, exacerbated by the once-bipolar rivalry between the traditional heavyweights-the Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-evolving into a four-cornered contest with the emergence of the AAP and the fracturing of the SAD-BJP alliance. Amidst all this, splinter Akali groups, like the Sangrur MP Simranjit Singh Mann-led SAD (Amritsar), and Dalit-dominated Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which fought the 2022 assembly election in alliance with the SAD, are also vying for political space in select seats. Stirring this cauldron further, the 31-year-old radical Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh, lodged in an Assam jail after his arrest under the National Security Act charges last April, has announced his plans to enter the fray as an Independent from Khadoor Sahib. So, who has the upper hand?

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