“If Channi is not made the state president, the Congress cannot form its government in Punjab.” That was former MLA Darshan Singh Brar on Friday, July 3, 2026, speaking to reporters outside the Morinda home of Charanjit Singh Channi, where a crowd of the former chief minister’s backers had been building since the morning.
The crowd was a reply to a decision made two days earlier. On Wednesday the Congress high command had announced committees for the 2027 Assembly elections and kept Amrinder Singh Raja Warring on as head of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee. Channi, the Jalandhar MP, had been seen as a leading contender for that job. He got the chair of the campaign committee instead, a post that carries the work of planning and strategy for the poll fight.
Who turned up
The Economic Times, relaying PTI, listed a heavy turnout of senior names: former deputy chief minister O P Soni, former ministers Bharat Bhushan Ashu and Gurpreet Singh Kangar, former MP Mohd Sadiq and sitting MLA Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa. Several ex-MLAs came too, among them Nazar Singh Manshahia, Gurkirat Singh Kotli, Lakhvir Singh Lakha, Darshan Singh Brar and Tarsem Singh.
Kangar put the case in plain terms. “We have to go to people to seek votes and people want Channi as the state chief,” he said. Brar went further and said the party could not come to power under Warring.
The Tribune described the gathering as the first open show of discontent since the retention of Warring. Its report said the people assembled felt Channi’s tenure as chief minister and his links with grassroots workers made him the natural pick, and that putting him at the head of the state unit would have energised party workers. Several of those present stopped short of attacking the high command directly. They did make clear, though, that the decision had let down a large section of the cadre, and they asked the leadership to reconsider.
Channi stays quiet
Channi himself had said nothing publicly on the appointments by the time the Tribune filed. According to PTI, he is said to be miffed at missing out, and is learnt not to have made even the customary call to thank the party leadership after the announcement. The leaders at his residence told reporters they had come to meet him and would follow his directions on what the party does next. The Tribune’s sources said he would issue a statement and address his supporters that evening.
The high command had tried to calm things. Another former deputy chief minister, Gurdaspur MP Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, was named chairperson of the core committee, and several other leaders were fitted into different committees in a bid to check factionalism. Randhawa, like Channi, had been seen as a contender for the state president’s post. Partap Singh Bajwa also stays as Leader of the Opposition in the Vidhan Sabha, since the party made no change there.
The party leadership had not responded to the show of anger when the reports were filed. The Tribune noted that the Congress was trying to project unity just as the open dissent appeared, and that attention would turn to whether the high command would reach out to the disgruntled leaders before the differences widened ahead of the Assembly polls next year.
Sources
- Punjab Congress reshuffle triggers dissent; Channi supporters gather outside his home as Warring is retained – The Tribune
- Former Punjab CM Channi's supporters gather at his residence, demand he be made state Congress chief – The Economic Times (PTI)
