In a long, typically freewheeling interview at his Patiala residence, Sidhu talks about the chief minister’s post, the need to honour merit, and the changes since Captain Amarinder Singh’s exit from the Congress. Edited excerpts:

The Congress brought about a change of guard three months ago by appointing Charanjit Singh Channi as chief minister to fulfil its pending promises and to give a new sense of direction to the party. What has changed since then?

The public perception has changed. Now, it is believable that something will happen. We don’t have a puppet chief minister who dances to the music of the opposition. He (Capt Amarinder Singh) was there to save his skin and not to resurrect Punjab. I am not saying that everything has come down to the ground. That is another challenge and for that I have struggled for almost 17 years without compromise. My struggle has moral authority and character. With these personality traits, I want to bring structural change collectively. This cannot be achieved with lollipops and announcements. You have to deliver. Who will deliver and how? Punjab will ask this question. Selling lies had become a practice. They were selling dreams without the means. Has sand become free? Have cable rates come down to ₹100? I checked yesterday, one trolley of sand was still going for ₹3,700. Good intentions die unless they are executed. The execution will only happen through structural change.

Is not three months too short a time to bring about change?

I see the government beyond 2022. We are managers of public funds. Where will the money come from — borrowing, taxes and income? The states that are self-sufficient have brought this change through income. When you say 30,000 employees have been regularised, you need ₹1,000 crore. To meet the demands of ETT teachers and others who are protesting, ₹2,000-3,000 crore are needed. Did we honour pay commissions and allowances? These things require ₹25,000 crore.

How do you look at chief minister Channi’s performance?

The intent is there, but intent could be there to come back to power. Can that intent be executed? That’s the question. What was happening earlier is still carrying on — ‘give this free and give that free’. Punjab’s current power subsidy is ₹15,000 crore annually. I’m not saying subsidy is bad, but we must give it to those who need it — to the last man in the queue.

So, you are for targeted subsidies?

We must honour merit. We must have a structural change. We must have budgetary allocation. We must tell people about our resources and this is how we are going to spend it. That’s why Amarinder Singh was sent home packing. He enslaved ministries. I was fighting the system for five years. Did anyone else talk about it? Now, this will stop.

But all parties, including the Congress, are in this game of announcing freebies and trying to outdo each other.

I am the only one standing. I am the only one who is talking about the Punjab model. Did anyone in the last 30 years say this? The mafia was masquerading. Someone’s cook is a front. There are also contractors who are the front. It’s the same 100 families which run this system. We need to break this system. In the past 25 years, two CMs and just ‘point one per cent’ of people kept getting rich.

Will the Congress make a break from politics of populism in its manifesto for 2022 polls?

My politics is issue-based. If you want to come to power by giving lollipops and diverting the attention of people from issues, I am not there. Who will deliver? One who has been involved in illegal mining? Can he set up a sand corporation? We all know who they are.

But, is your own party convinced about your ‘Punjab model’?

In the last elections, I had come with an agenda 15 days before the polls and went to 56 constituencies of which 54 were won. People have trust. Character is not made in a crisis, it is exhibited. People trust moral authority. Last but not the least, it is the agenda, the road map.

Are you flagging all these issues to Mr Channi?

I have been telling him openly. Why is it not happening is because in spite of the intent, where is the policy, where is the budgetary allocation and where is the structural change? On power, rates have been cut. But for how long? Do you want to do it for two months or for five years from 2022? Are you going to just fool people by saying two months? Have we been able to give pay commission, TA, DA in five years? Petrol, diesel rates have been cut. How much is the revenue loss – ₹7,000-8,000 crore? How are we going to make up? I tell you this is how it is to be done.

You are in power. Why is it not happening?

Was I in power in the first four and a half years? I fought with Capt Amarinder and sat at home for one and a half years. No one thought he will be removed. Who got him removed? Who brought the new DGP? An FIR [in a drugs case against Akali leader Bikram Singh Majithia] has been registered after six years. This is the evidence that in this system when people who are mixed-up come, they protect each other. Sidhu fought at every place for the Guru, law and order and poor people.

Will the Congress high command decide before assembly polls who can deliver beyond 2022?

People of Punjab will elect their ‘waaris’ (heir). Make no mistake about it. The high command is also accountable to people. They are so well aware of what is happening around. They know what is best for the party. The chief minister was changed. Who picked the new CM? The MLAs? Who will make the CM now? People of Punjab. You will have to see who has their confidence for 20 years, who has policy, who has been fighting and who is not corrupt. You will have to have someone at the top who is not for sale because the system is so powerful. There is no personal fight with anyone.

Should the Congress announce its CM face for 2022?

I am not going into that. They will have to honour merit in whatever they decide. The greatest power for an individual in this world is the power to say ‘no’. I have said no on many other occasions. I will not be part of this wrongdoing and I will give up the position. Isn’t my stand of resigning vindicated? The DGP was removed, there was result. Similarly, AG was removed, there was result. If you have the power to take decisions, there will be more results.

The high command has decided that the election will be fought under collective leadership and the CM will be decided thereafter.

What I am telling you is that before that the people will decide. After the elections, it will be late. People will decide who they will vote for, who will deliver, who has the agenda. If we give them the policy, the road map and an honest human being who can deliver, people will understand. If you sell dreams and lies, they will not. They are aware that there is a game of chess going on.

Hoardings lauding Channi’s pro-people decisions are seen all over Punjab. So, who is the face of the party in the elections?

Have posters won you elections? There were a million posters of Capt Amarinder Singh. He is sitting at home. ‘Posters laane hain dilan wich lao’. You cannot fool people. There is nothing wrong with having posters and hoardings. Posters of only CM are put up. Posters alone will not make any difference. People will have to be convinced.

Will the party manifesto reflect your Punjab model?

Only time will tell. If I am putting forth my views and met ‘bhai’ (Rahul Gandhi), there must be some reason. Whatever happens within the four walls of a party meeting cannot be disclosed.

You have repeatedly said you won’t be the showpiece, implying that you are an election winner for the party.

Not at all. We collectively win elections. What I mean is that good people are put in front at the time of campaigning and then they are sidelined. They are not given any power to take decisions. How will the system change if the bad and ugly take decisions and the good are put to rest and made a showpiece?

Should the high command announce a CM candidate?

The high command is high command because they take their decisions. We are supposed to obey.

You are speaking between the lines…

There are a lot of things that are to be said between the lines.

The Congress has a tradition of the CLP naming the CM as per the high command’s choice.

What happened the last time in Punjab? The Congress CM face was announced, while Arvind Kejriwal did not and lost. There is just one and a half months left for elections. There will be no CLP now. Who will decide then? People will decide. If people of Punjab do not vote, what will the high command do? They will vote for some reason.

Are you suggesting that the Congress may suffer if it does not name its CM face?

I am not suggesting anything. What I am saying is this is what happened.

Why will the people vote for the Congress?

It will be the moral authority which will be valued. The Congress has been fighting with a Panthic party against which the Panth stood up the last time. The Congress fights someone like the BJP which talks about Hindutva. The Congress is a secular party. This time, it is AAP; it’s an option. Wherever such an option has got the better of the Congress, our party has not been able to come back.

The AAP has done impressively well in its maiden outing in Chandigarh municipal polls today. Will this resonate in the Punjab polls?

Chandigarh is a pocket. Retirees, officers and educated people live there. Chandigarh cannot be the benchmark. The voice of Punjab will come from its villages, small traders and poor labourers.

Who is your main challenger this time – Akali Dal or AAP?

There is no challenger. I compete with myself. People of Punjab feel cheated. It is a story of failed promises.

Are the Akalis calling the FIR against Majithia a political vendetta?

If this FIR is vendetta, why were they reduced to just 15 seats in 2017 assembly polls? Was it political vendetta by the people?

You have been pushing the CM for action on the 2015 sacrilege-firing cases. Will your government act before the elections?

You ask him. I tell him to take action every day. If they don’t get justice, people will lose trust. Two CMs mortgaged Punjab. They neither gave justice nor equality.

How is Mr Channi different from them?

It is for you to decide. I am no one to be judgemental on anyone. There are no personal battles.

In the past one week, there has been a sacrilege incident and a bomb blast. What are the implications for Punjab?

We need eternal vigilance that the socioeconomic fabric of Punjab given to us by the great Gurus is not broken for selfish interests, for vote bank politics and threatening and instilling fear in one community to polarise it.

DGP Siddharth Chattopadhyaya said that Pakistan’s ISI and pro-Khalistan elements are behind it. Who is polarising?

Why does it happen a month before the elections? Everything cannot be said directly.

What do you make of the farmer organisations’ entry into the electoral arena and their seeming gravitation towards the AAP?

It is the democratic right of anybody to contest elections. But if they are seen to be backing out on their word [of staying apolitical], that hurts their credibility. Farmers’ agitation was a social movement. They are now political. In politics, you have to tell the direction for all segments.

How important are the Punjab elections for the Congress’s scheme of things nationally?

It is very, very important. When the BJP talks about Congress-mukt Bharat, they realise the biggest threat is the Congress. They don’t feel threatened by any regional player. That’s where I stand with Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi for a lifetime, unconditionally, but when it comes to Punjab, I am with Punjab.

Are you confident of beating the anti-incumbency?

The one who had the anti-incumbency is gone. That’s why he was removed. We would not have won 10 seats under his leadership. Not even a single MLA stood with him. They heard the voice and pulse of the people of Punjab.

How do you see the alliance between the BJP, Captain and the Sanyukt Akali Dal led by Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa?

There is no ideology. It is a marriage of convenience for a foothold. He should take retirement and relax, but Amarinder wants to take revenge.

You come across as a man in a hurry to be announced as the CM face.

I am in a hurry to bring an agenda, a road map. I am a man in a hurry to not repeat my mistakes. I am all for change in a system that benefits only a hundred families and not three crore Punjabis.