The Congress Monday announced four committees for the upcoming Punjab Assembly polls with the exercise betraying a clear attempt to placate disgruntled party leaders. While former PPCC chief Sunil Jakhar will be campaign committee chief, senior party leader Ambika Soni will chair the party's coordination committee and another former state unit chief and Rajya Sabha member, Partap Singh Bajwa, will be the chairman of the manifesto committee. But most importantly, the task of screening aspirants for tickets has been given to central leaders who are believed to be close to former Congress president Rahul Gandhi. Congress president Sonia Gandhi approved the committees on Monday. Screening Committee The party has assigned three Central leaders to the Screening Committee for tickets. Ajay Maken will be this committee’s chairman, Chandan Yadav and Krishna Allavaru as its members. While Maken was appointed an observer when former CM Amarinder Singh was ousted, Allavaru has been active in the state for a while. He is known as a quiet surveyor of the party who provides inputs to Rahul about the party and its leaders. Yadav, a leader from Bihar is also considered close to Rahul. Punjab CM Charanjit Singh Channi, PPCC chief Navjot Sidhu, AICC secretary incharge Harish Chaudhary and all AICC secretaries incharges of Punjab are its ex-officio members. The other panels The Coordination Committee has been constituted with Soni as its chairperson to keep the warring leaders under control. While Jakhar has been tweeting against Channi and Sidhu both, Sidhu has also been attacking his own party government led by Channi. Bajwa, who was once against Amarinder had sided with him at the fag end of his tenure. Interestingly, Soni and Jakhar do not get along well. Soni had gone to the extent to blocking attempt to pick Jakhar as Amarinder’s replacement as CM. The party, sources said, had decided on Jakhar, who was specially called from Bangalore to reach Punjab. But at the last minute, Soni had gone to the media stating that Punjab should have a Sikh CM. Jakhar is a Hindu Jat. Jakhar had recently met Rahul in Delhi and was offered the post of campaign committee chief. It is learnt that he had refused to work with Channi and Sidhu in Punjab. Suddenly, the party constituted the committees and named the chairpersons with Jakhar in the committee. It remains to be seen how all these leaders work together. By assigning Partap Bajwa to the manifesto committee, the party has conveyed a message that it wants him in the state. Bajwa has been wanting to contest from Qadian, but now faces opposition from his brother and sitting MLA, Fateh Bajwa. Senior Bajwa, however, claims high command’s blessings. With Bajwa as manifesto committee chief, the party had left out Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal, who was the man behind the earlier Congress manifesto. The party leaders have been ruing that Manpreet made huge promises in the manifesto that could not be fulfilled. Bajwa has thanked the Congress high command for giving him the responsibility. He tweeted to say that he will work to shoulder it well.
