I don't think it really matters given that crisis was solved by the ascension of Duleep Singh in 1843. Even if Ranjit Singh had lived another 10 years even he wouldn't have prevailed in the Anglo-Sikh War of 1849 which is really the even you want to prevent to change anything of significance.
I allude to dealing with this in
Europe and the Balance of Power, Part V, 1851-1871 when I mention
George Hamilton Seymour speaking with Tsar Nicolas II about a problem with the Sikh Empire in 1852. ;-)
But why would the Anglo-Sikh Wars have even happened in this scenario, though? Kanwar (tl. 'Prince') Kharak Singh had himself taken the initiative to open a personal correspondence with the outgoing Governor of Bombay, Sir John 'Boy' Malcolm, who purportedly provided significant mentorship and inspiration to Kharak Singh via these exchanged letters during his last few months in office, in which Kharak Singh expressed significant enthusiasm about several of the initiatives and reforms being spearheaded by Malcolm (particularly the efforts to abolish Sati and female infanticide by moral persuasion, as well as the promotion of Indian education and literacy). The British East India Company's assigned diplomatic agent to the Sikhs though, Col. Wade at Ludhiana, took this as a personal affront and insult, and chose to interpret these correspondences IOTL as being indicative of the prince's own doubts and apprehensions regarding the matters of his succession and personal safety, "as if to derive hope from the vague terms of complimentary replies". And the main reason why Kharak Singh fell out of favor with the aristocracy in the Lahore Darbar, was his religious bent of mind, and his introverted nature; as a follower and supporter of the Sevapanthi sect of Sikhism- which was coincidentally also the most successful sect of Sikhism in the south-west of the Sikh Empire, as well as beyond Punjab's borders in Sindh and Balochistan IOTL. Shikarpur, and the wider region controlled via this city in particular, was described by Alexander Burnes in 1830 as '50% Sikh, 40% Muslim and 10% Hindu', with Sindh as a whole estimated to be 25% Sikh by his reckoning, primarily because of this sect's success. But with the Sevapanthis' later exclusion from the Sikh community by the emerging Akali leaders of mainstream Sikhism in Amritsar, under British rule, these Sindhi Sevapanthi Sikhs almost universally wound up coming to identify as Nanakpanthi Sindhi Hindus instead- with said 'Nanakpanthis' having comprised the overwhelming majority of Sindhi Hindus prior to partition IOTL, over 25% of the total population of Sindh, and having also dominated Sindh's economy and trade pre-partition.
One might say of the Nanakpanthis that "they worship God through idols, they don’t follow any of the five Ks; they just follow rituals tangential to Sikhism"; but the Sanatan (tl: 'Eternal') Sikh denomination heavily identified with the Brahmanical social structure and caste system, in spite of this being in clear opposition to the fundamental teachings of Sikhism, and it was the most powerful and prominent Sikh faction in the 1800's, during the height of the Sikh Empire IOTL. The Sanatan gained social prominence following heavy persecution of the Khalsa by the Mughals, wherein the Khalsa had been forced to relinquish institutional control over the Gurdwaras and vacate the Punjab plains in the 1700s, and it was they who comprised the overwhelming majority of the mahants (hereditary managers/custodians who controlled and held the door keys). They were the ones who guided the operations of Sikh gurdwaras in the pre-British 18th and colonial-era 19th-century Punjab, empowered by the support and patronage of many of the most influential Sikh Imperial elites, and later, by the colonial British empire. These mahants also often belonged to Udasi, Nirmala, or other Brahmanical-influenced ascetic heterodox sects, or were non-Sikh altogether. And whilst the Khalsa/Reformist Sikh factions set about engaging in guerilla campaigns against the Mughals and the hill-rajas of the Sivalik Hills allied to them, and later fought the Afghans and established themselves as local leaders, with their jathas solidifying into the Sikh misls of the Dal Khalsa, which established the Sikh Empire and brought them to political power, the Brahmanical/Vedantic Sikh Mahants instead wrote exegeses and solidified their control over the Gurdwaras, consolidating their religious institutional power.
Sanatan Sikhism espouses spiritual sympathy and leniency towards the worship of idols and images, rural traditions and to respecting Hindu scriptures. It was they who were the primary participants and molders among the rural masses of the Sikh Empire's population; and in contrast to Nirankari and Tat Khalsa Sikhs, Sanatan Sikhs did (and still so) actually consider images and idols of the ten Sikh gurus, as well as others, to be an inclusive practice, and a wholly acceptable means of devotional worship. Known as the 'Sahajdhari', these Sanatan Sikh mahants- who generally claimed direct descent from the Sikh Gurus, holy men (Babas, Bhais, Sants) and/or intellectuals in Sikhism called gianis and dhadhis- actively practiced the worship of images and idols, and provided ritual services and led functions for Sikh aristocrats and elites during Sikh Imperial rule, under the patronage of Sikh elites and aristocracy. And with the positions of mahants having also been hereditary at this time, they also actively encouraged the perpetuation of a Brahmanic caste system, with themselves at the top. Their views have been dismissed by the vast majority of Sikh scholars, and labeled and shunned as "Hindu saboteurs", having engaged in the Hinduization of Sikh customs and the institution of idolatrous practices. But it was only with the rise of the Singh Sabha movement, after the creation of the SGPC and the Nankana Sahib massacre, that these idols were removed from sites like the Golden Temples, and that laws were passed to abolish hereditary mahant priesthoods, with control over the Gurdwaras subsequently mostly passing from the Sanatan Sikh denomination to reformer Sikhs, and the orthodox Sikh stance shifting to wholesale rejection of idolatry.
IOTL, this underlying struggle between the Sikh Empire's political and religious elite was arguably the primary factor behind the factional intrigues which ultimately caused the downfall of the Sikh Empire. The Khalsa reformist factions, led predominantly by the Sandhu Jat clan (founders of both the Kanhaiya and Nakai Misls) sought to entrench what we see today as the defining attributes of Sikhism- aiming to create a more meritocratic, egalitarian and secular system of governance. Maharajah Kharak Singh, for instance, was described as being "extremely kind" and of a "mild and humane disposition" even by his foremost detractors (several of whom called him a 'weak-willed', 'simple-minded', 'imbecile' and 'idiot' precisely because of these character traits), and the degree to which he was "loved by his dependants" (championing the causes of women and of lower castes in the Sikh Empire when few if any others in the Imperial Court would) was noted by all. This was also what had incurred the disdain and contempt of Hari Singh Nalwa, the Commander of the Sikh Khalsa Army, who'd been tasked with training Kharak Singh in his childhood, and noting his high degree of aversion to violence and killing, had attempted to 'beat this weakness out of him'. Nalwa declared this task impossible by the time Kharak Singh was 15yrs old, washing his hands of the endeavor, and in January 1818, shortly prior to the Expedition of Multan, demanded that Kharak Singh's mother Datar Kaur aka 'Mai Nakain' take over his training instead (since it'd be more befitting of Kharak Singh's incurable afflictions of being a 'mother's boy' with 'the cowardly heart of a woman', who couldn't so much as stomach the hunting and killing of wild game, let alone the summary slaughter of the Afghan hordes threatening the Sikhs' north-western frontier).
Hari Singh Nalwa was soon forced to eat humble pie on the matter though, as Mai Nakain rose to accept his challenge of taking over her son's military training herself; joining the Expedition to Multan, she took it upon herself to personally manage the logistics of the Sikh army during that expedition, and taught her son in the administration and handling of important strategic and governing duties, at which he excelled, as well as instilling in him the values of humanitarianism and diplomacy. This period of tutelage under his mother continued for 18 months, with Kanwar Kharak Singh achieving exemplary decisive victories in all the battles he was invested with the command of in this period, dealing inexorable damage to Nalwa's pride and ego; and in the subsequent expedition against Kashmir, the Battle of Shopian proved the final straw for him. In its aftermath, Kanwar Kharak Singh guaranteed the personal safety of every citizen of Srinagar when the Sikh army entered the city after the battle, strictly prohibiting any plunder or retributionary violence against the previously Afghan Durrani-controlled city's Muslim majority population by his troops. Hari Singh Nalwa, however, had sought to destroy the remains of Durrani power by reducing the city to ruins instead, before rebuilding it as a planned fortified town, to better secure the Kashmir Valley so that no Durrani Afghan reinforcements could threaten the Sikh heartland from there and mount another genocidal campaign to wipe out the Sikhs (as they'd done in the Vadda Ghalughara aka 'Greater Massacre' less than 60yrs prior, which had killed off c.50% of the total Sikh population at that time) ever again; with Nalwa having been angered enough by Kharak Singh's leniency that he demanded that Kharak Singh's training by his mother be brought to an immediate end after this.
And Nau Nihal Singh (who'd participated with Hari Singh Nalwa in the Peshawar campaign at the age of just 13, having been sent to receive training from the Khalsa Army's commander much as his own father Kharak Singh had been at the same age), was extolled by Hari Singh Nalwa as being a far more prodigious talent, who'd be far more suited to succeed Maharajah Ranjit Singh, rule the Sikh Empire and lead the Khalsa Army- mostly, on account of the the fact that Nau Nihal did possess that same stomach for violence, slaughter and bloodshed which his grandfather Maharajah Ranjit Singh did, but which his father Kharak Singh had sorely lacked. As a multi-lingual patron of the fine arts, astrology and of handicrafts like Phulkari knitting, Kharak Singh was also deemed to be too heavily and easily influenced, giving females in particular far too much respect and agency for the traditionalists' liking; accused of having been 'dandified' by his mother's training, depleted of the degree of male dominance needed to be a strong enough ruler, with the most problematic influences upon him deemed to be his Queen Consort Chand Kaur (who even prior to her husband's and her only son's deaths, often purportedly chose to forgo wearing a veil in favor of a turban, attended military parades in lieu of her husband, and was purported to have stated "Why should I not do as Queen Victoria does in England?"), and by his personal tutor and closest advisor Chet Singh Bajwa; a close relative of Kharak Singh's brother-in-law Mangal Singh Sandhu, who aligned himself with the Bhais and the Misrs at the court, and purportedly had "such an ascendancy over him as to render him a puppet".
Both belonged to the Sandhu Jat clan which governed the Kainhaiya Misl, with Jat clans also governing 8 of the 12 misls, comprising the majority of the Sikh Empire's political elite, and it was said of them at the time that "their spirit of freedom and equality refused to submit to Brahmanical Hinduism and in its turn drew the censure of the privileged Brahmins... The upper caste Hindu's denigration of the Jat did not in the least lower the Jat in his own eyes nor elevate the Brahmin or the Kshatriya in the Jat's estimation. On the contrary, he assumed a somewhat condescending attitude towards the Brahmin, whom he considered little more than a soothsayer or a beggar, or the Kshatriya, who disdained earning an honest living and was proud of being a mercenary". Chet Singh had the support of the Bhais of the Sevapanti Sect, the Misrs (the five sons of the by-then deceased Misr Diwan Chand), and of the 'French Brigade' of the Fauj-i-Khas. Particularly General Ventura (born Rubino, who'd changed his name to conceal his origins as a Sephardic Jew), who'd succeeded Hari Singh Nalwa as the de facto Commander-in-Chief of the Sikh Army, and had long held ill feelings towards Dhian Singh, and General Allard, who'd fallen in love with, married and had 7 children with Princess Bannu Pan Dei of Chamba, and been forced to leave her and their children behind in the 'Pan Dei Palais' he'd built for them in his home town of Saint-Tropez in 1835, fearing that she'd be forced to become Sati if he died in India for any reason; with Generals Court and Avitabile having also all sided with him, and supported his vision for the future of the Sikh Empire and of Sikhism itself, which would have been more closely aligned with the core French values of
Liberté, égalité, fraternité.
Kharak Singh also spent most of his time away from the excessive decadence and over-indulgences of the royal court, with the Dogras taking advantage of his absence to spread rumors that Kharak Singh was absent from the court so often, and confined himself in his own private quarters most of the time when he was in Lahore, on account of being so heavily addicted to alcohol and opium that he twice a day deprived himself of his senses and spent his whole time in a state of stupefaction- a tale which European visitors to the Sikh Imperial Durbar were all too willing to believe and recount, since it fit the orientalist narrative. However, in actuality, in accordance with his religious leanings, Kharak Singh was a vegan tee-totaller, who abstained from intoxicants of any kind (with the Austrian court physician Honigberger having purportedly fallen out with Kharak Singh over the crown prince's refusal to take the opiates he'd been prescribed). And it may also be worth a mention that, whilst Kharak Singh did spend most of his time in Lahore in his private quarters, he very rarely, if ever, spent this time alone- or with any of his wives for that matter, Chand Kaur included. There were two adjoining beds in his room; one belonging to himself, and one belonging to Chet Singh Bajwa. And there are also question marks about the precise nature of the increasingly "close" relationship between Kharak Singh and Chet Singh Bajwa- the precise term in Punjabi which was used by contemporaries to describe their relationship can also be translated as 'intimate'.
Given what we know about Kharak Singh's personality traits and preferred pastimes, there's a very real possibility he may well have been bisexual, and in an intimate relationship with Chet Singh Bajwa. Which, if true, would provide added explanation for Chand Kaur's falling out with her distant uncle, and her and Nau Nihal Singh's complicity in Chet Singh's assassination- beyond the rumors spread by the Dogras that Chet Singh was a traitor and was in the pay of the British, along with the forged documents which they'd had presented to Chand Kaur and the newly arrived Nau Nihal Singh and claimed to have 'intercepted', alleging that Chet Singh had agreed to place Punjab under British protection, and that when they let him take over, he would pay six annas out of every rupee (3/8th) of revenue to the British, with the promise that he would disband the Khalsa army, and remove all the current Sardars from their commands (effectively, reproducing documents which offered the same terms to the British which Sher Singh's grandmother, Sada Kaur, had actually offered to the British as chief of the Kanhaiya Misl back in 1820- seeking to break away from the Empire which she'd played a critical role in helping her son-in-law to create, after he'd spurned her daughter and grandson to informally confirm his favorite wife's firstborn son as his heir instead, only for the British to refuse, since they couldn't contemplate admitting a princely state with a female head of state).
The Dogras, the Prime Ministers/Wazirs of the Sikh Empire, were the effective leaders of its religious elites, with whom were also associated the Sandhanwalias. The Dogras themselves identified as Nanakpanthi Hindu Rajputs, and provided the greatest patronage of all to the Sanatan Mahants of Sikhism's most prominent Gurdwaras and holy sites- most of it directly from the taxpayers' purse, and supported by ever-increasing religiously discriminatory taxation against the Muslims, in their own personal fiefdom of Kashmir most of all. And it was they who were responsible for the imposition of several of the more problematic and controversial Sikh Imperial edicts, imposed upon the general populace in keeping with their own beliefs. Prominent examples of these include the universally imposed bans on cow slaughter and the Islamic call to prayer, which caused the greatest counter-reaction and incited civil unrest among the majority Muslim population; and the Dogra administrations' increasingly severe and institutional imposition of
veth-begar (caste-based forced labour analogous to serfdom, from which only Brahmins/Pujani such as the Mahants and Rajputs such as themselves were exempted) upon the populace, under the premise of 'facilitating the supply of materials to the imperial army', which precipitated the rise of the 'Sikha Shahi' narrative. And after the stroke which deprived Maharajah Ranjit Singh of his ability to speak, reducing him to communication via sign language, in Jan 1839, Kharak Singh had been deprived of any further access to his father on his deathbed by Dhian Singh Dogra (as his younger brother Sher Singh was), forced to bribe the attendants to gain entry, and repeatedly being dispatched away from Lahore on missions and campaigns far more often than required.
In the meantime, Wazir Dhian Singh had taken full advantage by pretending to understand all the gestures and directives of the Maharaja, and effectively seizing power exclusively for himself, increasingly brazenly issuing his own edicts in Ranjit Singh's name. First and foremost among these had been reversing of the awarding of Kashmir to Kharak Singh (which had been the last edict issued by the lips of Maharajah Ranjit Singh himself, as a check on the ambitions of Gulab Singh Dogra)- with Dhian Singh immediately declaring that the Mahajarah had indicated to him through signs that Kharak Singh was unfit to govern Kashmir, and that his own elder brother Gulab Singh Dogra should be Raja of Kashmir in perpetuity. The penultimate major example involved Dhian Singh Dogra summoning Misr Beli Ram (the director of the Royal Treasury, and second-born of the Misrs), 2 days prior to Ranjit Singh's death, and asserting that the Maharaja had indicated through signs to him that the Koh-i-Noor diamond be given away, with all proceeds going to the Brahmins in charity. Beli Ram publicly refused, in front of the summoned Sikh royal court; saying that the priceless gem should be retained for the Maharaja’s descendants, and pointing out that Dhian Singh had already given away twenty-one lakhs of rupees from the royal treasury to the Brahmins in the past few months alone (roughly 7% of the entire Sikh Empire's annual revenues, at a time when the Sikh Empire's revenue accounted for just under 1% of the entire world's estimated GDP). That's how much money he was sending the way of the Brahmins, and the priest class which perpetuated the Hindu caste system in the Sikh Empire; that's where the Dogras' power base came from, even more than any of their later dealings with the British.
Immediately upon Maharajah Ranjit Singh's death, 2 days later, Dhian Singh summoned Prince Kharak Singh to the deceased king's bedside; placing his hand in Maharaja’s hand, and then in his own hand, before returning to the court to announce publicly that the Maharaja had named Kharak Singh as his successor, and himself as Kharak Singh's Prime Minister. However, by this stage, Kharak Singh was having none of it; they'd incurred his enmity through their actions and abuses of power, and he had no intention of letting them get away with it once he'd been crowned as the new Maharajah of the Sikh Empire. According to the testimony of the Wisconsinite Alexander Gardner (who'd sided with the Dogra brothers instead, to better maximize the personal profit he could garner from the situation), on the day of Kanwar Nau Nihal Singh's return to Lahore from Peshawar, where he'd been stationed with the Khalsa Army in connection with the implementation of the Tripartite Treaty to restore Shah Shuja to the throne of Kabul (having sent a message requesting that his father's coronation be delayed until his pre-scheduled return to Lahore a few months later, only for Dhian Singh to fast-track the coronation to take place a week before Nau Nihal's scheduled arrival, in light of Sher Singh's approaches to the British to try and obtain their support for his own claim to the throne; which the Governor-General had only rebuffed, after some delay, immediately after the coronation took place), after having conversed with Generals Avitable and Court earlier that morning and conspired to have the Dogras assassinated, "euphoric Chet Singh was rash enough to warn Dhian Singh in open Durbar that day: ‘See what will become of you in the next twenty four hours’. Dhian Singh smiled and said, ‘Your humble servant Sir, we will see’.”
And ultimately, if you look at the circumstances of how Kharak Singh was overthrown, how the Dogras cemented their grasp on power, and how their Elitist/Traditionalist faction triumphed over the Liberal/Modernist faction in the Lahore Darbar,
in the end it all came down to the events of that one day, the 8th of October 1839; the first in the series of political murders, leading to anarchy, and the end of the Sikh Empire. All because Chet Singh Bajwa was rash, arrogant and foolhardy enough to gloat to Dhian Singh Dogra before having him killed; with the Dhian Singh Dogra making full advantage of these "24 hours" he'd been given by Chet Singh Bajwa to make haste over to the family quarters in the palace as soon as night fell (which he'd been allowed free entry to by Maharaja Ranjit Singh, but had recently been denied entry to by Kharak Singh), meet with Nau Nihal Singh and his mother Rani Chand Kaur, and convince the pair that if Bajwa succeeded in his designs, he and the foreign officers would dominate, the royal family would be reduced to mere figureheads, and the Sikh Empire would be reduced to a mere princely state of the British; securing their agreement that Maharaja Kharak Singh should be made to step aside and be the Regent of his son, Nau Nihal Singh. With the only obstacle, Chet Singh, having to be 'put away'. In the words of Alexander Gardner:
"I received orders [from Dhian Singh] that loaded guns were to be placed at nightfall at all gates of the palace, and that whatever occurred, whatever there thunders might be at the gates, every one was to feign sleep. Raja Dhian Singh asked me if I would like to accompany him, and of course I accepted the invitation. The party consisted of about fifteen: the three Raja brothers – Gulab Singh, Dhian Singh and Suchet Singh – in addition to Prince Nao Nihal Singh; then came the heads of the Sindhanwalia family, the two trusty noblemen called Rao Lal Singh and Rao Keshur Singh, and myself.
"The ladies of the Zenana (tl: family quarters) had promised to leave us free entrance to the building where the Maharaja and his minister [Chet Singh] slept. It was near midnight when we entered the palace, and no sooner we left the gate through which we had been admitted a voice accosted us, “Who is it?” Dhyan Singh replied, “The Maharaja goes to-morrow to bathe at Amritsar, and we are to make the necessary preparations.” This was the concerted answer. We reached another inner gate, which noiselessly opened on a whispered order from Dhyan Singh. Without uttering a whisper, we stealthily crept our way in the dark up a flight of stairs, over a place called Badshah-i-Takht, and thence to the immediate vicinity of the royal apartment. Here Gulab Singh and Dhyan Singh held a whispered consultation, the purport of which I could not catch.
"At this moment a man started up, and seeing us, called out and tried to run off. Suchet Singh shot him dead, and was himself instantly knocked down by a tremendous cuff on the ear dealt him by his brother, Gulab Singh, who cursed him under his breath for his imprudence. On looking over a parapet we saw two companies of the Maharaja’s guard. Dhian Singh quickly went down the staircase to the place where they were stationed, and was accosted by subadar who said, “why did you fire?” I had followed Dhyan Singh, and stood immediately behind him. He simply showed his right hand (on which he had two thumbs) and put his finger to his lips.
"On seeing the well known peculiarity the subadar whispered, “Lie down,” and the whole of the two companies noiselessly lay down at full length and pretended sleep. The subadar then pointed with a mute gesture to the room of the doomed man, the door of which had been left ajar. There was a light in the room. Dhian Singh approached and entered it, followed by the whole party. Lo! there sat Maharaja Kharak Singh on his bed washing his teeth. The adjoining bed, which belonged to Chet Singh, was empty. When asked where his minister was, Kharak Singh simply replied that he had gone out on hearing a shot fired.
"Perceiving a fierce sort of half-smile light up the faces of the Dogra brothers, he begged that Chet Singh’s life might be spared, and would have proved very restive had not his own son and four or five Sikhs held him down while he proceeded in search of the fugitive. Two torches had to be lit, and on entering the room where we expected to find the Minister it appeared to be empty; it was very long and narrow. Lal Singh however, called out that he saw the glitter of a sword in one corner, and there cowered the wretched man, his hand upon his sword. We were armed only with daggers.
"The eyes of Dhian Singh seemed to shoot fire as his gaze alighted and fixed itself on his deadly foe. Gulab Singh was for interposing to do the deed of blood himself, fearing for his brother (who was a short man) in the desperate defence he counted on; but Dhian Singh roughly shook him off, and dagger in hand, slowly advancing towards the enemy, said, “The twenty four hours you were courteous enough to mention to me have not yet elapsed.” Then with the spring of a tiger the successful counter plotter dashed at his enemy and plunged the dagger into his heart, crying out, “Take this in memory of Ranjit Singh.” Dhian Singh then turned round to his party, his face radiant with gratified purpose, and courteously thanked us for aid.
"We then in token that this was entirely a State proceeding, prostrated ourselves at the feet of the Maharaja Kharak Singh, and subsequently at the feet of his son, Nao Nihal Singh. The latter had been most actively and fully occupied in trying to pacify his father, whose rage was uncontrollable. It was only by the intercessions, prayers, and explanations of the Maharani and the other ladies of the Zenana, added to those of his son, that he could be brought to understand the political necessity of the doom that had been meted out. The night’s work done, we all returned quietly to our camps”.
And for his shows of defiance in front of the Lahore Darbar, and their alignment with Bajwa's faction, on October 9, 1839, the morning after the assassination of Chet Singh Bajwa, the director of the Royal Treasury Misr Beli Ram was sent for, along with his brothers Misr Ram Kishan and Misr Sukh Raj; with Dhian Singh Dogra ordering that they all have iron shackles fastened on their legs and be sent to prison, only escaping execution on account of the Dogras' acknowledgement of their status as Brahmins, thereby exempting them from capital punishment.
So then, it's not so much about "What if Ranjit Singh appoints a successor before his death"- he had, and done so as early as 1816. It's more like "What if Chet Singh Bajwa had just had Dhian Singh Dogra and his brothers killed without 'being courteous enough to mention the twenty-four hours' to them first?" Or even "what if Maharajah Ranjit Singh died from that stroke in Jan 1839, instead of simply being rendered mute and almost completely paralyzed, enabling the Dogras to usurp near-absolute power for themselves and commence the asset-stripping the Sikh Empire in the last 9-10 months of his reign?" With Kharak Singh having already inflamed tensions and exposed divisions within the British East India Company itself, could he potentially play the Bombay Presidency off against the Bengal Presidency, as well as make the most of the connections of the 'French Brigade' who supported him, until the Great Rebellion of 1857 and the inception of the British Raj forces the consolidation of British India within its pre-existing borders (i.e, excluding the Sikh Empire)? What benefits would the British East India Company reap from invading before then, to overthrow a regime led by someone who was already engaged in open dialogue with them, and sought to extend closer diplomatic ties with the already allied British (especially after having garnered widespread condemnation, both internationally and back home in England, for having already done so in its invasion and annexation of Sindh)? And who would benefit from it if they did?
