Jubilant Congress workers set off a barrage fireworks across several Punjab small towns and cities to greet former chief minister Amarinder Singh’s return as the state Congress president after nearly four years in relative wilderness since he relinquished power in early 2007.
“This signals the return of competitive politics in Punjab where the Congress Party has been virtually running by default led as it were by a working president since their defeat in the February 2007 Assembly elections,” said senior political observer and social scientist Pramod Kumar. Enthusiastic partymen who literally jammed the mobile telephone networks for hours after the announcement of Capt. Singh’s appointment on Tuesday evening, said they now have a “decisive” leader with a proven capacity to take on the twin Sikh-Hindu challenge presented by the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance as well as to shape a new, forward-looking agenda for Punjab.
Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s decision to bring back Capt. Amarinder Singh just about a year ahead of the state Assembly elections due in early 2012 appears to have suddenly brought the increasingly scattered Punjab Congress together. Even leaders openly critical of the former chief minister seemed to have put away their differences to join the long queue to congratulate him.
And the man himself has already begun planning his strategy to edge the SAD-BJP out of power in the coming polls. “The Congress president has entrusted me with the job and I aim to make certain that I keep her faith,” Capt. Singh told this newspaper on Tuesday evening. “My main task will be to take everyone along and begin rebuilding Punjab from the ruins.”