Congress leader Charanjit Singh Channi was on Monday sworn-in as the new Chief Minister of Punjab, a day after Captain Amarinder Singh resigned from the post following months of bitter infighting with state unit chief Navjot Singh Sidhu. 

Shortly after Channi’s oath-taking, which made him the first Dalit to take the post, Om Prakash Soni and Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa were sworn-in as his two deputy CMs. This comes after a few other names, including Cabinet Minister Brahn Mohindra, were considered for the role. 

Ahead of the swearing-in ceremony, AICC general secretary and the party’s Punjab in-charge Harish Rawat stirred up a controversy, saying the party will contest the upcoming 2022 assembly election under Sidhu’s leadership.

The comment was criticised by former Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar, who said Rawat’s statement was “baffling“. 

“On the swearing-in day of Sh @Charnjit_channi as Chief Minister, Mr Rawats’s statement that ‘elections will be fought under Sidhu’, is baffling,” Rawat tweeted, adding that it is likely to undermine the new chief minister’s authority.  

The party settled on Channi, the technical education minister in the outgoing Amarinder Singh cabinet, after a flurry of consultations through Sunday, following the abrupt cancellation of an 11 am meeting of the CLP, according to PTI.

Several names did the rounds over the next several hours and minister Randhawa appeared to be the clear frontrunner for a while. Earlier, Congress veteran Ambika Soni told reporters in Delhi that she was offered the post but declined.

Outgoing finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal is also learnt to have backed Channi.

The Congress decision was announced on Twitter a little before 6 pm, and came as a surprise to most.

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“It gives me immense pleasure to announce that Sh. #CharanjitSinghChanni has been unanimously elected as the Leader of the Congress Legislature Party of Punjab,” Rawat tweeted.

Channi, 58, becomes chief minister with less than six month to go before the assembly polls in Punjab.

Amarinder Singh was nudged into quitting ostensibly over his “failure” to fulfil the promises made by the party in the 2017 assembly polls.

It is not certain that new CM will be able to accomplish the task in the time available to him, observers say. And Navjot Singh Sidhu, recently appointed as the party’s state unit president, could still be projected as the CM candidate as the elections near.