In the news again for his controversial remark on jailed MP Amritpal Singh, former Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi has a penchant for making vexed statements that have made him the favourite punching bag of the BJP.
Destiny’s child Channi was foisted as the chief minister of Punjab in a surprise move in 2021 before the state elections, but he suffered the ignominy of his party not just losing those elections but both assembly seats he contested from despite being projected as the next CM face by the party. Channi then virtually disappeared from the scene for over a year, before making a dramatic return in these Lok Sabha elections by winning the Jalandhar parliamentary seat.
Channi first came on the BJP’s target list after the incident involving Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cavalcade getting stuck on a flyover in Punjab due to the farmer protests. Channi, then the CM, controversially made light of the matter and said there was neither any security lapse nor any attempt to attack the prime minister. However, a Punjab Police probe in the incident led to seven police officers being suspended. A Supreme Court-appointed committee also indicted several state police officers for lapses.
During the Lok Sabha elections this May, Channi termed the Poonch terror attack on an IAF convoy as a “poll stunt”, bringing him rebuke from no less than Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. His statement was later also determined to be a violation of the Model Code of Conduct.
“These are all stunts, not attacks… whenever elections are near, such stunts are performed to make the BJP win. There is no truth in it,” he had claimed.
In Punjab, Channi has often projected the image of being a common man who came from modest roots and made his way to become the chief minister. In his election campaign in Jalandhar this year, he was often seeing mingling freely with locals and having tea at stalls. However, BJP MP Ravneet Singh Bittu in Parliament on Thursday said Channi was corrupt and among the “richest” in Punjab, hinting at the Enforcement Directorate (ED) probe against the ex-CM’s family in a sand mining case.
By batting for Amritpal Singh, the MP from Khandoor Sahib — which is located next to Channi’s constituency of Jalandhar — the former chief minister could be trying to cater to the separatist sentiment prevalent in some regions of Punjab. His target is also the Bhagwant Mann government in Punjab that has clamped NSA on Amritpal Singh and pushed him behind bars in far-off Dibrugarh in Assam. The Congress has distanced itself from Channi’s latest remarks which have only given more political fodder to the BJP ahead of the upcoming three state elections.
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