Punjab: On campaign page, Amarinder Singh as next CM

JALANDHAR: A day ahead of the three-member panel set up by Congress president Sonia Gandhi beginning one-on-one meeting with Punjab Congress MLAs and ministers to address the infighting, Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh’s Facebook campaign page ‘Punjab Da Captain’ projected him as the CM candidate for 2022 assembly elections.
The slogan ‘Punjab Da Captain’ was projected in 2017 and this FB page has been working since then.

With title ‘In 2022 also Punjab Da Captain will be CM face’, the post further claimed that “Congress high command is standing like a rock with Punjab’s Captain, in 2022 also (he) would be party’s face, people of Punjab will make him victorious,”. The post has an insertion of a news clip in Hindi, stating that he would be the CM face in 2022.
However, Most of the comments below this FB post are negative and several have raised questions on him.
aAnnouncing a CM candidate has always been considered a prerogative of the Congress high command. The three-member panel — comprising Congress general secretary and party’s Punjab affairs in-charge Harish Rawat, leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha Malikarjun Kharge and former Delhi Congress president J P Aggarwal — has called 25 MLAs to Delhi on Monday. Over the next two days, the panel would be holding meetings with MLAs and ministers.
This projection of Amarinder as CM candidate from his FB page was made on Sunday night. According to party insiders, Amarinder has upped ante just when the party high command’s intervention has begun.
He has been facing criticism from MLAs Navjot Sidhu and Pargat Singh while a couple of ministers and a few other party legislators have also held meetings with them.
Several ministers and most of the MLAs have not taken any side as yet even though the CM attacked Sidhu and at least seven ministers sought action against him.
In February third week, Punjab Congress president Sunil Jakhar had twice announced the starting of ‘Captain for 2022’ campaign, which also virtually meant declaring Amarinder as CM candidate in the next assembly elections. But the move fizzled out after Pargat said that it was a prerogative of the party high command and most of the ministers, MLAs or other senior party leaders also refrained from supporting it. Jakhar, who had made a poster of this campaign, profile picture on his WhatsApp, replaced this two weeks back with poster “Modi ji, why did you export vaccination for our children abroad”, which was posted by Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi and scores of other prominent Congress leaders on their social media accounts.
Congress has not been announcing chief ministerial candidates before elections even as choices had been obvious. The only exception was announcement of Capt Amarinder Singh’s as CM face in 2012 and 2017 elections. However, that also was done by the Gandhis.