Jakhar’s lonesome blues: One-time Cong heavyweight now out in the cold

A day after the party’s Congress disciplinary committee issued him a show-cause notice, the National Commission for the Scheduled Castes (NCSC) on Tuesday wrote to the police commissioner of Jalandhar to register an FIR against Jakhar over the allegedly objectionable comments about Dalits that he made in a television interview last week. Though Jahkhar did not name anyone, his remarks were construed to be aimed at Channi.

The former Gurdaspur MP had courted controversy in the run-up to the state elections too by labelling Channi a liability and claiming that the party did not choose him as its chief ministerial face as he is Hindu.

Jakhar, however, told The Indian Express that the comments in the television interview were not directed at Channi but at a group of 23 party leaders questioning the Gandhi family’s leadership. The remarks were taken out of context and did not have any casteist connotation, he added.

“The Congress is the most secular party. It is an ocean. (Former Congress president) Rahul Gandhi is the most secular leader. But petty-minded leaders have crawled their way up. They misguided the party high command,” Jakhar said, refuting the allegation that his comments had caused Hindus to vote against the party in the recent elections.

Jakhar’s colleagues in the state unit have, however, not taken kindly to the comments. While Channi met Rahul Gandhi on April 7 to protest against the former state Congress chief, another Dalit leader, Raj Kumar Verka, publicly criticised Jakhar. “Indiscipline will not be tolerated,” said new Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring.

Meanwhile, Jalandhar Police Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Toor told The Indian Express that “a communication had been received in the matter” from the SC panel. The commission’s letter to the police chief, however, did not name Jakhar.

Facing public criticism from his party, Jakhar reminded everyone that his father Balram Jahkhar “stood by the Congress and the Gandhi family through all ups and down”. Balram Jakhar is the longest-serving Lok Sabha Speaker and was also the governor of Madhya Pradesh.

“He (Balram Jakhar) always stood by the Gandhi family. He was four-time MP and two time MLA. He served as agriculture minister,” added the former MP.

The party’s action against him was like “shooting the messenger”, the Congress leader added.

When Jakhar entered the poll fray in the 2002 Assembly elections, he was 48 years old and was branded a reluctant politician. But he managed to make people sit up and take notice for he neither dressed like a career politician in crisp white kurta-pyjama nor spoke like one.

Not surprisingly, he fought and won the election from his family’s pocket borough of Abohar in 2002 and went on to repeat the feat in 2007 and 2012. Between 2012 and 2017, he was the Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly.

The last four years have, however, not been kind to the Congress leader’s political career. He suffered a surprise defeat in the 2017 Assembly polls at the hands of a local councillor from the BJP but managed to bounce back by getting elected to the Lok Sabha from Gurdaspur in a by-poll that year necessitated by the death of actor-turned-politician Vinod Khanna.

The veteran leader was even chosen to lead the party in Punjab. However, two years on, he lost to the BJP’s Sunny Deol from Gurdaspur in the parliamentary elections.