Doubting the 'Dalit focus' of the Congress in Punjab in choosing Charanjit Singh Channi as the new Chief Minister, the BJP on Monday said the State president Navjot Singh Sidhu, a Jat Sikh, is the " proxy CM".
As the Congress shifted and shuffled with its top leadership in the poll-bound Punjab and decided to appoint a Dalit Chief Minister, BJP described the move as a mere political tokenism.
BJP General Secretary Gaurav Bhatia maintained that the real face of Punjab during next year's elections would not be a dalit Channi but Sidhu and quoted Congress-in-charge Harish Rawat to say so.
BJP's National Secretary and MP Vinod Sonkar challenged Congress leadership to declare that Channi will be Chief Minister for five-year post-elections.
He alleged that the Congress has made Channi Punjab chief minister for a few months merely to grab Dalit votes as part of its conspiracy, and cited previous instances of the party giving the key position to a leader from the community only for a short tenure.
Sonkar gave examples of Congress appointing Sushil Kumar Shinde, a dalit, as CM in Maharashtra but post-election declaring Vilas Rao Deshmukh as CM in the state.
Similarly, he cited the appointment of Jagannath Pahadia in Rajasthan who was replaced by Shiv Charan Mathur after the poll success in the state.
Sonkar alleged that it was the Congress that did not allow Jagjivan Ram, a senior dalits leader in the Congress, to be the Prime Minister of the country.
Rawat's comment that Sidhu and not Channi to lead Congress campaign in Punjab embarrassed the state leadership and confounded an already confused political equations in the state leadership.
Party leader Sunil Jhakhar, who was also a contender for the CM post, lashed out at state in-charge Harish Rawat over the latter’s statement that the next year’s assembly elections will be fought under Sidhu.