AICC general secretary in charge Sachin Pilot will visit Punjab on September 15, when the state Congress is set to stage a major protest and show of strength and several senior party leaders are expected to participate in the march, which will demand justice for Gulzar Singh, a labourer who died by suicide.
Pilot has said that he will lead the march to the residence of Punjab Cabinet Minister Harpal Cheema in Chandigarh and the Congress leaders will demand justice for Gulzar Singh’s family, an independent inquiry into his death and the termination of Harpal Cheema. Pilot will reportedly set out on foot from Chandigarh as part of the protest.
The visit comes at a time when the Punjab Congress continues to face differences between different factions within the party.
Sachin Pilot has also made it clear that there is currently no proposal to change the leadership of the Punjab Congress, and his statement comes amid continued demands from the Charanjit Singh Channi faction for changes in the state leadership and greater prominence for Channi.
Pilot has indicated that the Congress will continue with its existing leadership structure in Punjab. The message comes after the party changed its state in-charge, replacing Bhupesh Baghel with Pilot, partly with the objective of addressing factionalism within the state unit.
The Congress is currently led by Raja Warring in Punjab.
Pilot has also clarified the party's position on declaring a Chief Ministerial face ahead of the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections and he said that in states where Congress is in opposition, the party normally contests elections collectively rather than announcing a Chief Ministerial candidate in advance, and acording to Pilot, all senior leaders will campaign and contest together, and if the party secures a majority, the decision on who will become Chief Minister will be taken afterwards.
The position is significant because the Channi faction has been seeking greater prominence for former Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and has been pushing for him to be projected as the party's CM face.
Pilot's statement effectively rules out an immediate decision to project an individual leader as the CM candidate.
Pilot has also indicated that Rahul Gandhi will play a leading role in the Congress campaign in Punjab.
Charanjit Singh Channi was earlier appointed chairman of the party's campaign committee, however, according to party sources cited in the information available, Channi has not held a meeting of the committee so far.
The latest statements from Pilot suggest that the party's larger campaign will be centrally led rather than being built around a single Punjab leader.
Despite the change in the state in-charge, differences between the Warring and Channi camps have continued.
The two groups have held separate meetings and political programmes instead of consistently appearing together and the divide was also visible during the response to Gulzar Singh's death. Channi and leaders associated with his faction met the Governor without Raja Warring, despite Warring being in Chandigarh at the time. Channi's group also visited Gulzar Singh's family separately, while Warring visited the family on another day.
Internal meetings among leaders associated with the Channi faction have also continued. Two days ago, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Charanjit Singh Channi, Tript Rajinder Bajwa and other leaders held a meeting in Jalandhar.
The issue of sharing a platform with Raja Warring has also remained unresolved and during an earlier meeting with former Punjab in-charge Bhupesh Baghel, leaders associated with the Channi faction had indicated that they did not want to share the stage with Warring and subsequently held a separate meeting.
The same differences were reportedly visible during a meeting with Congress general secretary K.C. Venugopal, now, with Sachin Pilot's first Punjab visit approaching, attention is on whether the two factions will appear together during the September 15 programme.
Pilot has already held one-on-one meetings with key Punjab Congress leaders in Delhi. The party high command is also keeping a watch on the activities of state leaders and has conveyed that deviations from the party line will be reported to the high command.
The September 15 protest will therefore be more than a political march against the AAP government and it will also provide a test of whether the Punjab Congress factions can put their differences aside and appear together under the new state in-charge.
