By sending three senior Congress leaders as Observers to Punjab, the party high command has set into motion the process to assess the ground situation, gather feedback, and prepare for leadership or structural changes in the state unit.Late last evening, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge appointed three senior leaders — Ajay Maken, Meenakshi Natrajan and Bhajan Lal Jatav — to assess the political scenario in Punjab with immediate effect.They are expected to camp at Chandigarh or move around Punjab to prepare a ground report over the next three days, before submitting their inputs to the party high command.Party insiders said that the exercise of sending observers is usually done just before major organisational reshuffles (change in PPCC president, working presidents, or other key office-bearers). Even though there are reports that the high command may not be considering a drastic change in the top leadership right now, the process has clearly begun.A senior party said the leaders are likely to listen to senior Punjab Congress leaders, district Congress presidents, and other important leaders in Punjab to access the issues raised by state unit leaders before Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and Kharge during a meeting last month in Delhi. Party top leadership had thrice met Punjab leaders over inter-party issues.Various issues raised by Punjab Congress leaders regarding the functioning of the state party unit, and issued that need to be raised ahead of the 2027 assembly elections are likely to be taken up by the observers.The appointment of observers comes in wake of strong buzz on Thursday morning about party high command not considering any change in the top state leadership. Punjab affairs in charge Bhupesh Baghel has been constantly ruling out any change of leadership. It may be mentioned that while removing Capt Amarinder Singh as the Chief Minister in September 2021 and appointing Charanjit Channi as the interim CM,  the party high command had then sent three observers — Ajay Maken, Harish Chaudhary and the then Punjab affairs in charge and former Uttarakhand CM Harish Rawat.