India's Congress party faces test of survival as Punjab votes

ATTARI • Mr Charanjit Singh Channi, the Chief Minister of the Indian state of Punjab, has many of the elements to mount a successful election campaign in India.

He is from the state's dominant party. He has waived utility bills and reduced prices on necessities like fuel.

And he has captured the imagination of India's raucous television scene, offering viral moments that depict the 58-year-old Chief Minister, a former handball player, as a man of the people: breaking into bhangra dance routines at debate events; stopping his official convoy to help an injured biker; congratulating a newly married couple on the road.

Yet as this state of 30 million people voted yesterday to elect its new government, Mr Channi is an underdog. Not only are the opposition parties trying to dislodge his Indian National Congress party from one of the last states where it remains in power, but his own ranks have also been unravelling amid messy infighting.

The vote in Punjab is shaping up as a broader test of whether Congress, which governed India for the majority of its history since independence from British rule, can arrest its steep national decline in recent years following the rise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

At the national level, Mr Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has established itself as such an undisputed force in consecutive national elections that India's democracy increasingly feels like a one-party rule, analysts and observers say.

Mr Channi, in an interview between campaign rallies, acknowledged the pressures of his situation, adding that he was focused on only what he could do. "I work hard, with dignity and effort, and the rest is up to the public," he said.

The Congress party, run by members of the Gandhi family at the top, is a shadow of its former self, with less than 10 per cent of the seats in Parliament and leading governments in just three of India's 28 states.

It has won some victories in local elections, but not enough to fuel a national revival. Other regional parties that have been trying to form coalitions to challenge Mr Modi have expressed frustration with what they see as Congress' sense of historic entitlement, despite its shrinking numbers.

Several parties, including Mr Modi's BJP, are trying to gain seats when the votes for the Punjab assembly are tallied next month, along with the results of ongoing elections in some other states.

In Punjab, an agrarian state struggling with rising farmer debt and unemployment, the main challenger is the Aam Aadmi Party, which is trying to expand nationally after sweeping to power in the capital region on an anti-corruption protest movement.

Driving between rallies last Friday, Mr Channi stopped his convoy when he saw a group of children playing soccer. He took turns taking penalty shots, and then playing goalkeeper as the children took shots. His media team quickly posted a video on his Twitter account, edited in a way that showed Mr Channi as both shooter and defender of the same shot - an apt metaphor for his party's race.

NYTIMES