The former chief minister of Punjab, Captain Amarinder Singh lost to AAP Candidate Ajit Pal Singh Kohli at the Assembly Election 2022. Singh served as the CM of Punjab from 2002 to 2007 and then from March 2017 to 2019. The Congress Party had won the 2017 State Assembly Election under his leadership. However, he resigned in 2019 after months of infighting in the Punjab Congress, and with Navjot Singh Sidhu’s repeated attacks on the leader. He then formed his own part called the Punjab Lok Congress.
Singh in a press conference had said he felt “humiliated” by the fact that a CLP meeting had been called for the third time, and that the leadership did not trust him.
The Rise and Fall of Captain Amarinder Singh
Amarinder Singh first became an MP in 1980 and had joined the negotiations to sort out the Punjab issue. However, Operation Blue Star happened and Singh resigned from the party as well as the Parliament despite being a close friend to the Gandhis. The operation blue star in 1984 and Bargari sacrilege a year turned tides against the Congress and SAD respectively, but it was Captain Amarinder Singh, who emerged as a tall leader after making exits in after these two incidents.
Then, he switched to Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and also became a minister in Surjit Singh Barnala’s government in 1985. He resigned from the cabinet seven months later when police entered Darbar Sahib on Barnala’s orders. The move also led Amarinder to emerge as a Sikh leader. The move worked for Amarinder and helped him get to the CM’s chair later in 2017.
Reports suggest that it was only due to Amarinder’s acceptance among the Sikhs that helped revive Congress in Punjab since 1999. The party had become untouchable for the Sikhs, a fact which was evident in the 1996 and 1998 general elections and 1997 assembly elections. But Amarinder became the factor for Congress’ revival in Punjab. Though the party lost the 2007 and 2012 assembly elections under Captain’s command, he didn’t lose his charisma.
In 2014, during the Lok Sabha elections, he contested elections against BJP top leader Arun Jaitley from Amritsar. Though Congress suffered defeat with the lowest tally, Amarinder Singh won the election and also managed to take over the party state presidentship from Partap Singh Bajwa.
In the 2017 assembly elections, the ruling Akali Dal had fallen to the third spot. Congress won a majority, with most of the seats coming from Sikh dominated rural areas.
However, he started progressing towards his downfall when he openly criticised the opening of the corridor to Kartarpur Sahib. After his resignation, following the tiff with Navjot Singh, he further drew scepticism when he said that he will soon announce the launch of his own political party, adding that he is also open to forming an alliance with the BJP for the 2022 Punjab assembly elections.
This came a month after Amarinder stepped down from the top post citing “humiliation” following an acrimonious power struggle with Punjab MLA Navjot Singh Sidhu, who was appointed as the state Congress president.
This came as a huge blow to his political image as the 2021 farmers’ protest against the BJP was supported by the majority of the general public in Punjab.
Furthermore, in January this year, the former Punjab CM had said the BJP is the only party that can take care of the state’s security and economic challenges and he slammed the Congress and AAP for making poll promises which can’t be fulfilled.
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