The fragmented Congress party in Punjab is set to get a new face in the run-up to the crucial Assembly polls, with state Congress chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring having been summoned to Delhi for a talk with the party high command and top party leader Rahul Gandhi.The next 48 hours are crucial for the Punjab Congress as party president Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi talk to all faction heads and seek to arrive at a consensus. None other than Sonia Gandhi is believed to be keenly interested in the final outcome, as is her daughter and Rahul’s sister, Priyanka Gandhi.As of now, there’s only one certainty: Raja Warring will go.The question that now begs itself is, after Warring who?Talk of a new chief has been on since Sachin Pilot took charge of the Punjab party, barely two weeks ago, from former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel.The senior Congress leaders emphasised that Raja Warring, who refused to resign in the face of protests in recent months by his fellow party-men, won’t be asked to put in his papers, “because that is not the Congress way”.But even Warring can see the writing on the wall. Every Punjab leader who has spoken to the party high command in the last few weeks has said the same thing, “Warring is a good man, but he cannot be the face of Punjab as it goes into this all-important election.”Still, the party is likely to give Warring a role. “In the Congress, the outgoing state unit chief does not resign. He was conveyed on Wednesday about the party’s decision to replace him. It is customary in the Congress that the outgoing state unit chief meets the top party leadership to send the message that they are together,” a senior Congress leader told The Tribune.Certainly, Pilot wants to show that the party is united, before Rahul Gandhi comes to Punjab later this month.Baghel, a seasoned politician, was unable to unite the warring factions in Punjab – a story as old as the centuries, at least since Babur won India at the Third Battle of Panipat in 1526.All eyes are now on Pilot, MLA from Tonk in Rajasthan, senior observer of the recent Kerala election who was able to pull the factions together in that state. Pilot is scheduled to arrive in Chandigarh this week to re-energise the party cadre.The party is right now split into more factions than there are Punjab regions – from the Majha region leader of opposition in the Punjab Assembly Partap Bajwa, Gurdaspur MP Sukhjinder Randhawa, Raja Sansi MLA Sukhbinder Sarkaria and Amritsar MP Gurjeet Aujla; from the Doaba region Jalandhar Cantt MLA Pargat Singh and Jalandhar MP Charanjit Channi; and Vijay Inder Singla, a former MP from Sangrur in the influential Malwa region.One big question that will confront the party high command is whether the Punjab unit should be led by a Jat Sikh, a Jat Dalit or a Hindu face. Singla, said to be a front-runner and the party’s best-known Hindu face, serves as the party’s Joint Treasurer, is in charge of Assets and Properties for the All India Congress Committee, and is a member of the Congress Working Committee that makes him a powerful challenger to reckon with.Charanjit Channi, a former chief minister and Dalit, is backed by the large and influential Dalit Sikh community. Punjab has the highest population of Dalits in the country, about 32 per cent, relative to the total state population.The remaining faces are all Jat Sikhs, a powerful lobby, owing to their large land-holdings and consequent influence in the peasantry.Pargat, a former minister, has earlier served as the Punjab Congress general secretary (organisation) when Navjot Sidhu was the state unit chief. Sarkaria had served as a state vice-president and was also a former Cabinet minister. Aujla has been elected to the Lok Sabha twice.The Congress has already assigned key organisational and election-related responsibilities to all three leaders. Aujla, Pargat and Sarkaria are co-chairpersons of the party’s Manifesto Committee for the 2027 Assembly election.All key leaders, including Channi,  MLA Tript Bajwa and Randhawa, save for Bajwa – as he’s the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly and the party is likely to leave him in that role — are camping in Delhi.