Nearly two years after the Congress lost Punjab Assembly elections primarily due to late announcement of candidates, it has apparently learnt little lessons.
Congress party has emerged as the last party to announce its candidates, giving an edge to the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party combine. So far, the party has announced candidates on just seven seats, and is yet to declare the name of its candidates for April 30 polls on six seats out of 13 parliamentary seats in Punjab.
On the other hand, the ruling alliance has declared its candidates for 12 constituencies, with BJP yet to decide on its candidate for Gurdaspur segment. Already, the SAD-BJP candidates have started campaigning in their constituencies giving them an advantage of covering more than their rivals which is taking its own time to decide on the candidates.
The clouds of indecision loomed large on the Congress party in Punjab with the names of party’s sitting MPs and Union Ministers, including Santosh Chowdhary, Manish Tewari, Mohinder Kaypee, Sukhdev Singh libra going missing from the five lists the party has released so far.
When the party had lost the Assembly polls in 2012, a post-mortem was virtually conducted by the Central leadership. One of the factors which proved fatal for the party was late declaration of candidates’ names.
At that time, the party’s Central Committee under the Union Defence Minister AK Antony, constituted to find out reasons for Congress shockingly poor performance in Punjab during 2012 polls, listed out the late and wrong allocation of seats as a major reason for party’s defeat, among others.
The critics maintained that the party, in 2012 Assembly elections, took a bit too long to decide on its candidates, giving not much time to woo back the defectors, and familiarising its “lesser known” candidates with the local electorates — leading to poll debacle.
Stirred, the Congress had then claimed that it would put in place a well-oiled machinery to ensure churning out of the deserving candidates for the parliamentary polls. Besides, the Antony committee had suggested that early ticket distribution was the panacea to the party’s problem. Though the Congress, it seems, is making attempts to ensure only the best candidates were fielded against the ruling combine with the Aam Aadmi Party in the fray too, the critics again are insisting that the party is losing precious time in setting the election ball rolling.
It has been learnt that the party had planned to announce almost all its candidates by the first week of February, well before the elections, believing that the move would “not only give candidates ample time for preparation, but also to minimise the sabotage by appeasing dissidents that cost the party 2012 elections”.
Even as the process of finalising candidates’ names for general elections was started as early as in January which was witnessed as a clear-cut departure from its earlier practice of holding back the list of nominees till the last date of filing of nominations, the Congress is till date juggling between the names, facing reluctance from its sitting MPs, and senior leaders to contest polls.
Acting tough, it has now adopted a strategy to “force” its senior leaders in the State to contest polls. As a part of the same, the Congress has fielded former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh from Amritsar.
The move came after the SAD-BJP fielded BJP stalwart and three-time Rajya Sabha MP Arun Jaitley to contest his first lok Sabha election from the holy city. He would now face the Patiala Royal in the electoral battlefield. The development assumes significance as the move is expected to tackle the poll-shy senior leaders, desertions to the rival parties, and a demoralised party cadre.
In the same move, the party took everyone for surprise by fielding former Union Minister Ambika Soni from Sri Anandpur Sahib by replacing the sitting MP Ravneet Singh Bittu, that too after declaring his candidature. The “reluctant” State party chief and former Gurdaspur MP has also been asked to fight the ballot battle from his home constituency. In the coming days, the party is expected to threw more surprises by announcing more names for the remaining constituencies — ludhiana, Faridkot, Ferozepur, Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar and Fatehgarh Sahib. Available information suggests that the party is seriously considering fielding Congress legislative Party leader Sunil Jakhar from Ferozepur. The name of other senior leaders, including former Chief Minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, two-time MlA Joginder Singh Panjgrain, Surinder Singla.