Congress boost in Punjab as Parkash Singh Badal nephew joins

Amarinder tipped as ‘CM face’ for 2017

Capt. Amarinder Singh, MP from Amritsar and Congress’ Punjab unit chief, has virtually emerged as the party’s CM face in next year’s Assembly elections. The party dropped clear hints of such a possibility on a day Manpreet Badal, estranged nephew of chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, joined the Congress.

Mr Manpreet Badal’s Punjab People’s Party has merged with the Congress. The PPP had, incidentally, polled five per cent of the vote in the 2012 state polls, won by the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP combine by a narrow margin.

“The face of the Congress campaign will be Capt. Amarinder Singh,” campaign committee chief Ambika Soni told reporters Friday when she was asked in the presence of Amarinder Singh, his predecessor Pratap Singh Bajwa and Punjab CLP leader Charanjit Singh Channi at the AICC headquarters here.

Asked specifically if Capt. Singh was the CM candidate, Ms Soni said: “How can I say this now

You draw your own conclusions.” The Congress has a tradition of not projecting any CM candidate in state elections.

The question was also posed to party general secretary Shakeel Ahmed, who handles Punjab affairs, at a press conference called to announce Manpreet Singh Badal’s entry into the party and the merger of his People’s Party of Punjab with the Congress. Mr Ahmed, however, asked Ms Soni to answer the specific query.

Capt. Amarinder Singh, Punjab PCC chief, said the party had lost the 2012 Assembly elections by 0.8 per cent voteshare while the PPP had got five per cent of the vote. “Had we come together, we could have saved Punjab,” he said.

Manpreet, who was state finance minister in the Akali-BJP government in 2010, quit the Akali Dal after certain differences cropped up between him and his uncle, CM Parkash Singh Badal, and his cousin, deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal. Manpreet said the Congress was “the right platform” for the PPP’s agenda, which is the growth of Punjab. He asserted there were “no preconditions” for the merger. “We feel the Congress will be a good, and actually the right and only platform where we can carry forward our Punjab agenda,” Mr Badal said.

Capt. Amarinder Singh, meanwhile, launched a scathing attack on Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, who had held a rally in Punjab on Thursday, and dubbed his Aam Aadmi Party as “totally inexperienced” and warning that Punjab will “not get back on its feet if the AAP comes to power after 10 years of total ruination by SAD-BJP”. He claimed Mr Kejriwal was trying to become Punjab’s chief minister.

Capt. Singh said with the PPP’s merger with the Congress, his party would now work towards bringing all secular like-minded parties together under “some sort of alliance” to defeat the Akalis and BJP. He described the BSP, CPI and CPI(M) as “like-minded parties”.