Rahul Gandhi may announce Punjab CM candidate on Feb 6: Sources

The Congress is likely to declare its chief ministerial face for Punjab on February 6 when former party chief Rahul Gandhi will visit the pollbound state party sources saidRahul Gandhi had announced during his last visit to Punjab on January 27 that the Congress will go into the Punjab Assembly election with a CM face and the decision on it will be taken soon after consulting party workersCongress president Sonia Gandhi has already started consultations with party leaders and workers on the chief ministerial candidateThe party is seeking responses from Congress leaders and workers through its Shakti app the sources saidThe party has also sought the opinion of common people on the issue and the process has started in the last two daysThe sources said Rahul Gandhi is likely to visit Punjab on Sunday February 6 and may make the important announcementOver the past several weeks Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and state Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu have directly or indirectly made a case for themselves to be declared as the partys chief ministerial candidateThe Congress appears to be putting its weight behind Channi who belongs to the Scheduled Caste community and has been fielded from two assembly seats of Chamkaur Sahib and BhadaurThe SCs and STs have been a traditional vote bank of the Congress but they drifted away from the party following the emergence of the Bahujan Samaj Party BSP and some other small groupsThe Congress is now seeking to consolidate the SC vote bank which comprises almost onethird of Punjabs population by choosing Channi to replace former chief minister Amarinder SinghA threetime MLA from Chamkaur Sahib Channi is the first Dalit chief minister of PunjabHe is the only party candidate to be fielded from two seats The Congress has followed the one family one seat formula in allocating tickets to its candidates in PunjabRahul Gandhi while addressing a virtual rally in Jalandhar last week had said that Channi and Sidhu have assured him that whosoever is chosen as the CM face the other will support himGandhi made the statement after Sidhu at the rally demanded that the party declare the CM face for the polls and said he doesnt want to be a showpieceDifferences in the party continued to simmer even after the ouster of Amarinder Singh and Channis elevation to the postThe Congress is seeking to retain power in Punjab and is pitted against the AAP the SADBSP and the BJP that has joined hands with Amarinder Singhs Punjab Lok Congress and Sukhdev Singh Dhindsas Shiromani Akali Dal SanyuktThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever