Charanjit Singh Channi on Sunday was named as Punjab 2022 election’s CM face. The incumbent thanked Rahul Gandhi and the party’s leadership after the announcement was made.
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Channi is the MLA from the Chamkaur Sahib Assembly Constituency. Previously, he was the leader of opposition in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha from 2015 to 2016. He succeeded Sunil Jakhar and was succeeded by HS Phoolka.
In 2018, Channi grabbed the headlines for all the wrong reasons. A woman IAS officer had accused him of sending “inappropriate” text messages to her.
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Channi has courted controversies right from fulfilling his astrological desires to allegations of illegal mining in SBS Nagar district.
Charanjit Singh Channi, was a Dalit face in Captain Amarinder Singh’s cabinet. Few days after he was inducted into the state cabinet, Channi, on the advice of an astrologer, decided to have an east facing entry to his house for political gains. He also illegally constructed a road from a park outside his official residence in Sector 2, Chandigarh.
Within hours, the road was razed by the Chandigarh administration.
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Again on his astrologer’s advice, Channi rode an elephant in the lawns of his house in Kharar. His picture of the “elephantine” act went viral and left many amused.
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Channi had also flipped a coin to decide on the right candidate, out of two nominees, for the post of a lecturer in a polytechnic institute. This had left the Congress embarrassed. However, the Congress said that the minister’s intention was to allot the posts in a “transparent” manner after a video clip of his “toss” act went viral on social media.
Channi’s rise in Congress, has also earned him many political enemies even within from his own party. His political journey started as a president of the Kharar municipal council in 2002.
In 2007, he contested the assembly polls from the Chamkaur Sahib constituency as a Congress rebel and won as Independent.
In 2012, he joined the Congress and won the seat.