Chandigarh MP Manish Tewari, who formerly represented Ludhiana and Anandpur Sahib in the Lok Sabha, today said Punjab was facing its gravest challenges since the state was reorganised in 1966 as well as the end of terrorism and required the kind of consensus late Prime Minister Manmohan Singh forged on economic liberalisation to deliver it from the current morass.In an interview with The Tribune, Tewari said he didn’t see an appetite for the BJP in Punjab, especially since the 2020 farmers’ siege, the Congress remained well placed, and the sweeping 2022 mandate to the Aam Aadmi Party was the result of the people’s “experimental disposition”.“Punjab has repeatedly proven that it has been very experimental in its disposition. Despite the sweeping mandate to AAP, the Congress did very well in the Lok Sabha elections,” Tewari said.Asked if replacing the then Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh in 2021 was a mistake, Tewari said, “Had we stayed the course, we would have performed much better.”On current discussions in the Punjab Congress about leadership changes, Tewari advocated ample time for any newcomer to make a difference.“Conventional wisdom holds that if any organisational changes are contemplated at all in any state, the people who are going to be put in a position of authority or responsibility then should get enough time to deliver. And in my organisational sense, at least a 24-month lead up to an election would constitute a reasonable period of time,” he said.He said the Congress had not called him for ongoing consultations on leadership changes in the state organisation.“Some 60-odd leaders were consulted, but I was not,” said Tewari, who won Ludhiana in 2009 with the highest number of votes in the state; Anandpur Sahib, the place of consecration of the Khalsa, in 2019; and Chandigarh, the capital of Punjab and Haryana, in 2024.The Chandigarh MP added that unlike other states, there was no caste- or community-based politics in Punjab. “If that would have been the case, I would have never been the MP from either Ludhiana or Anandpur Sahib. The essence of Punjab is Punjab, Punjabi and Punjabiyat,” Tewari stressed, batting for social cohesion in the border state.Noting that the competitive quest for power was a legitimate thing in a democracy, Tewari lamented the lack of public discourse on issues confronting the state.He listed five challenges for Punjab. “Punjab had a public debt of close to Rs 4.47 lakh crore. The average size of landholding for most people is under five acres, which makes standalone agriculture, even with MSP support, unviable. Punjab’s water table since 1980 has fallen by 20 to 30 metres. The largest industry here has been the IELTS exam, which young people take to emigrate, and now an anti-immigration sentiment is rising. Lastly, Punjab has been in the grip of Pakistan-unleashed narco-militancy,” said Tewari, calling for a clinical analysis of outcomes achieved since the reorganisation in 1966.“An ominous spectre looms over the horizon in Punjab, coupled with the fact that for the past year Pakistan seems to be on a bit of a high, and whenever Pakistan gets its head above water, it becomes a very mischievous entity and is the most destabilising influence in every respect in South Asia,” warned Tewari.