Congress bets on ex-CM Charanjit Channi to wrest Jalandhar back in a field of turncoats

The Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat has historically been a Congress bastion, with the party winning the seat 15 times across 20 elections, including three bypolls, since 1952. However, the landscape shifted dramatically in the 2023 by-elections, when the Congress’s Karamjit Kaur was defeated by Congress MLA-turned-Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate Sushil Rinku.

In the coming elections, on June 1, Rinku is contesting from the SC-reserved seat as a BJP candidate, while the Congress has put in the ring Charanjit Singh Channi, the former Chief Minister who remains the only Dalit to have headed the top post in a state where the Scheduled Castes form the largest chunk of the population.

Kaur, meanwhile, is also in the BJP now, having crossed over after the Congress denied her the ticket from Jalandhar. Kaur had been fielded in the 2023 bypoll after her husband Chaudhary Santokh Singh, the sitting Congress MP from Jalandhar, died soon after he had participated in Rahul Gandhi’s first Bharat Jodo Yatra.

Although Chaudhary’s family has been active in the Congress for decades, of late, they have been facing opposition from the Dalit community, who at 39% are the largest block of voters in the constituency. Dalit leaders feel they have been deprived of ticket opportunities with the family cornering them.

The decision to field Channi, originally from Ropar district, hence has not been opposed by any local Congress leader, barring Chaudhary’s son Vikramjit Singh Chaudhary — who sought the ticket for his mother or another family member — and former Congress state chief Mohinder Singh Kaypee, who defected to the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and is now its candidate.

Besides the BJP and SAD, Channi is also facing formidable candidates from the AAP and