Where voters fret about addiction and brute force

Bustling liquor vends have crowded out the busy milk bars that were once the characteristic feature of the Punjab highway. Now even the tagline in the advertising campaign for Verka,a Punjab government undertaking that specialises in milk and milk products,sounds more like an admonishment. “Je botal hi peeni hai,dudh di piyo”. If you must imbibe,drink milk,it says.

If there was an overarching concern in this poll,an issue that resonated across the state’s regions,it is Punjab’s drug problem. Be it in the predominantly rural and Jat-dominated Malwa region,or in the politically volatile Majha region that runs along the border with Pakistan,or in the Doaba belt which is the NRI heartland and home to the largest concentration of Dalits in the country,it was the same despair,the same urgency.

A generation is going to waste,was the lament. Government and political parties must do something,they said. Give us jobs,de-addiction centres,or at least a sports stadium to wean the young from drugs.

In this election,politicians were forced to take note of the building desperation on the street. In his rallies in Tarn Taran and Jalandhar in the last week of the campaign,when Rahul Gandhi went against his party’s convention by announcing Captain Amarinder Singh’s name as the Congress’s chief ministerial candidate,he also asked him to make the drug menace his first priority if the Congress is voted into power. Renovation of existing sports stadiums,or the building of new ones,was prominent in the claims and promises of SAD candidates in the Malwa region.

Muscle power

In this election,the term repeated by voters with varying tones of weariness,resentment and anger across Punjab was dhakka-shahi,or rule by partisanship and brute force. By all accounts,the bitterness has built up over time and both parties are seen to be guilty. Incriminating instances were cited from Congress- as well as Akali-led regimes.

The ruling party is seen to monopolise all public institutions and spaces in Punjab — the thana,the panchayat,the municipal council,the mandi board and cable network. There is a clear sense that the trend has accelerated in successive regimes.

The anxiety is not surprising. In an unprecedented step for any state in the country,a Punjab government gazette notification in 2010 made the police sub-divisions co-terminus with Assembly constituencies,formalising a systemic perversion that was already there in practice. That is,the DSP was officially made subordinate to the MLA. The notion of the impartiality of the bureaucracy and its autonomy from political control was officially given the go-by.

More unofficially,the position and power of the “halka-in-charge” or the constituency-in-charge has been institutionalised in Punjab. It is the title given to the ruling party’s elected MLA or its defeated candidate who becomes the all-controlling mediator between government and the people,often by-passing local administration functionaries and the elected MLA.

The Party takes over the State,and is itself the property of the Family. It is not just the SAD’s first family of the Badals and the Congress’s first family of Amarinder Singh. It is not just a handful of high-profile constituencies like Samana,Gidderbaha and Lambi.

In Sunam,cheerleaders for SAD candidate Parminder Singh Dhindsa exhorted people to use their vote to fetch “four MLAs” instead of one — a reference to the Family Dhindsa in which father Sukhdev Singh is already a Rajya Sabha MP,and Parminder’s mother and wife play active,though still informal,political roles. The same irony stalked the stage at Rahul Gandhi’s rally in Jalandhar.

Here,Mohinder Singh Kay Pee,MP,expressed gratitude to Rahul and Sonia Gandhi for giving the ticket this time to his wife Suman,the Congress candidate from Jalandhar West. In the same breath,he congratulated Rahul for initiating a democratisation drive in the Youth Congress.

Please-all

In the last year before elections,the SAD government pulled out of its bag several please-all schemes,like cycles for girls,and a plethora of targeted programmes,such as the doubling of free power to weaker sections. Crucial steps were also taken to improve delivery systems and reform governance.

Though implementation is still uneven,“fard kendras” and “saanjh kendras” have been set up across the state in the last year or so. While the former promise to make access to land records easier and faster,chipping away at the tyranny of “patwari raj”,the latter are designed as citizen-friendly spaces attached to the local police station,manned by policemen in civilian clothes,where non-criminal complaints can be registered and monitored online.

In the long run,both reforms,along with the Right to Services Act,also implemented in the last year,could go a long way in cutting down on corruption and delay in the police and revenue administration. But for now the question is: will they make a dent in the people’s accumulated distrust in government’s ability to be impartial,and to play fair? Will they benefit the regime that is responsible for bringing them in,belatedly?

Unlike in more denuded settings such as in Bihar,for instance,where a single successful scheme,or one new message or leader,can show up prominently,the aspirational Punjabi voter is difficult to please.

The Green Revolution took place in Punjab’s lush fields in the late 1960s. Then,the gains plateaued,the state came to a standstill in the terrorism-afflicted decade of the 1980s,and the economy has been slow to revive and diversify under increasingly populist regimes. Yet,the Punjabi can take time to warm up to the new dole or the tall scheme.

Caste equations

Other new factors will be on test. The SAD has made an attempt to expand beyond its now-divided rural Jat base in this election,by wooing the Dalits,for instance,seen to be a Congress vote bank. Given the long history of conflict and confrontation between the dominant and the lower castes,however,especially in the villages,it remains to be seen whether the SAD’s attempts at “social engineering” are seen to be credible and rewarded electorally. Unlike last time,the deras to which these backward owe allegiance have not openly come out in support of any party.

Manpreet’s test

Manpreet Badal,nephew of Parkash Singh Badal,and former finance minister in his cabinet,who launched his People’s Party of Punjab after he broke away from the SAD over a year ago,will also be tested in this election. The PPP is the centerpiece of the Saanjha Morcha that also brings on board the CPI and CPM.

The PPP’s list of 115 candidates brims with first-timers,from popular comedian Bhagwant Mann in Lehragaga to Oxford-educated Amanpreet Singh Chhina in Rajasansi. Even amid the generally small-scale electioneering by all parties under the EC’s watchful eye,the PPP campaign seemed particularly unadorned and low-key.

There were no security posses in sight,no elaborate carcade. In small gatherings,Manpreet and his candidates disclaimed the “lal batti” culture of privilege and entitlement,recited poetry and recalled the sacrifice of Bhagat Singh.

But regardless of the votes/seats the PPP nets in these polls,the electorate’s message to Manpreet seemed to be this: “Pair pasaran noon time lagda hai” — it takes time to dig in one’s heels. In other words: what’s the hurry,there will be other elections.

Party poopers

At first glance,the Congress seems to be the party most afflicted by the rebel factor in this election. In Doaba’s 23 seats alone,Congress rebels are in the fray in as many as seven. In contrast,the SAD has only one rebel in Doaba,and the BJP none.

Look closer,however,and it is a more tangled story. While it is true that the BJP has no official rebel,party insiders attribute it less to discipline or cohesion than to the lack of a recognisable leadership confident enough even to raise the banner of revolt.

In turn,SAD insiders point out that the figure for Akali rebels would go up if former Akalis standing as PPP candidates were to be included. And Congressmen point to a predicament unique to their party. “Rebel” candidates are propped up by Congress leaders at the state and central levels,apart from their “quota” of official candidates,all the better to cut down rivals within their own party.

Supporting role

One of the stories told about the outcome of the 2007 Assembly polls — in which the BJP posted its best-ever performance in the state,winning 19 of 23 seats contested and cushioning SAD losses in its traditional bastion of Malwa — features “Hindu consolidation” in Punjab’s cities and towns in favour of that party.

It was a reaction,this story goes,to then incumbent Congress chief minister Amarinder’s perceived attempts to outflank the Akalis on their own “religio-political” turf,by wooing Sikh hardliners into the Congress fold,for instance,or with his government’s commemoration of religious anniversaries and events with a special gusto.

In 2012,however,like all other contenders in the fray,the BJP faces questions that have to do with its choice of candidates. More specifically,it will be held to account for SAD-BJP governance in the cities. There are concerns about the quantum of VAT,and import duties. And about the party’s efficacy in the last five years in standing up for its urban constituency vis a vis its domineering senior partner whose base lies in the state’s rural belts.

In fact,across the state’s Hindu-majority towns and the Sikh dominated countryside,Campaign 2012 was marked by the absence of any religious appeal or agenda.

While it is true that the ruling SAD led the way in framing its “achievements” in terms of “development”,from the paving of roads to the building of highways and flyovers,it could also be argued that a more pervasive and fundamental shift in Punjab politics may have come to the fore in this election,leaving the party with no choice but to take its cue.