Bathinda/Chandigarh, Jan. 12 -- Punjab Congress affairs in charge Bhupesh Baghel on Sunday said the party will contest the 2027 assembly elections under collective leadership, ruling out a chief ministerial face. "They are all our chief ministerial faces," Baghel said while referring to senior party leaders of the state unit. Baghel was accompanied by the state Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, the Congress legislative party leader Partap Singh Bajwa and others during a press conference in Bathinda. Baghel was here on the last leg of the first phase of 'MGNREGA Bachao Sangram' said that except in the cases of Capt Amarinder Singh, who was announced as the chief ministerial candidate before the elections in 2017 and Charanjit Singh Channi in 2022, the Congress always had a tradition of fighting the elections under the joint leadership. "The final decision will be taken by the Congress president, Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi," Baghel said. The former Chhattisgarh chief minister and the AICC general secretary's statement comes days after he held a meeting with the top leadership of the state unit on January 8. In the meeting, Baghel made clear that the party high command has taken note of the factionalism and told the leaders with perceived chief ministerial ambitions to fall in line and publicly back the party's decision to fight the 2027 assembly elections collectively. Following the diktat, Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, MP and former deputy chief minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, and leader of opposition Partap Singh Bajwa publicly toed the party line. All three asserted that they were not in the race for the chief minister's post and that their sole focus was to ensure the Congress' return to power. "The party's victory is more important than individual ambition. I am not in the race for the CM post. I just want a Congress government," Randhawa said, which was followed by Bajwa and Warring making similar statements in different rallies. To present a show of unity, Baghel especially called Pargat Singh and Vijay Inder Singla to address rallies in Gurdaspur and Ludhiana. The party's high command's insistence on collective leadership is seen as an attempt to prevent a repeat of past mistakes. The diktat comes after months of sharp infighting and a string of disappointing electoral performances. The Congress has been routed in six of the last seven bypolls in Punjab, even slipping to a fourth-place in Tarn Taran, a slide that has deepened concerns within the party that internal divisions are eroding its ability to emerge as a credible challenger to the ruling Aam Aadmi Party. "The 2022 rout in assembly elections reinforced the high command's belief that projecting a face too early, especially in a faction-ridden unit, can be counterproductive," a senior party leader, privy to development, said, pleading anonymity. The leader quoted above warned that all may seem well on the surface; however, in reality, the divisions within the state unit run deep. Last December, Congress leader Navjot Kaur Sidhu was suspended after alleging that "one who gives a suitcase of Rs.500 crore becomes CM." The remark underscored longstanding perceptions of opaque power plays and reignited controversy around Sidhu's and others' ambitions within the party. Baghel, who attended two rallies in Bathinda's Bhucho and Baghapurana in Moga district as part of 'MGNREGA Bachao Sangram' slammed the BJP-led Union government's decision to scrap MGNREGA and said that PM Narendra Modi was working to destroy the rural economy. "MGNREGA was a rights-based law enacted to provide 100 days of work to rural labourers. Scrapping MGNREGA, the Modi government has snatched the constitutional right to work," he said....