It appears more crowded than ever in Punjab. When its 13 Lok Sabha seats vote Saturday, voters will have a choice of four major players, with no alliances in the picture – a departure from the long years that the Punjab contest was between the Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP alliance. While the SAD left its ally since 1996 in 2020 during the farm stir, also in the race now is the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which has the advantage of being the ruling party in the state. Though the Congress and AAP are partners in the INDIA bloc, they went their separate ways in Punjab, where the Congress is currently the main opposition party. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress had won eight seats in Punjab, with a 40.12% vote share. The SAD and BJP had won two seats each and secured 37.08% votes together. The AAP had got one seat and had scored 7.38% of the votes. The AAP had swept the 2022 Assembly polls that followed, winning 92 of 117 seats. The stakes for the parties For the ruling AAP, which is beset with crises, the elections will be a test of the popularity of its various welfare schemes. The party showcased the same through its campaign – talking about free 300 units of power, 43,000 government jobs, aam aadmi clinics, and supply of canal water to agriculture fields. However, it will be a challenge for the AAP to retain the 42.01% vote share it got in the 2022 Assembly polls, with voices of disillusionment – partly due to the sky-high expectations built by the party – already being heard in the state. With Punjab among the states where it continues to have a solid base, the Congress is hoping to repeat, or better, its good performance here to boost its numbers at the Centre. However, the party was plagued by the exit of several senior leaders, and would have missed having its most charismatic leader, former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, in the ranks. Former PPCC chief Sunil Jakhar, former Finance Minister Manpreet Badal, sitting Congress MP from Ludhiana Ravneet Bittu have also left the party. Bittu is now contesting on a BJP ticket from Ludhiana. The BJP is contesting all 13 Lok Sabha seats in the state for the first time, having earlier fought three at the most in its alliance with the SAD. Among the two erstwhile partners, the BJP was seen as enjoying the Hindu vote in cities, with the SAD holding up the rural front. As that premise will now be tested, particularly with the BJP facing farmer protests, party leaders were at pains to underline that this election for them was about “finding acceptance in Punjab”, and that their eye was on the 2027 Assembly elections. However, what came up repeatedly in the campaign was that 11 of the BJP’s 13 candidates are turncoats, the exceptions being Subhash Sharma from Anandpur Sahib and Anita Som Parkash from Hoshiarpur. The party with the most at stake though is the SAD, given its precarious decline after having enjoyed five terms in government in the state. Currently, it has only three seats in the Assembly. Fighting its first Lok Sabha elections after the split with the BJP, the SAD reached out to its core Sikh base, raising both Operation Blue Star and the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. The SAD-controlled Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee put up posters across the state to tell voters that polling day, June 1, was also the 40th anniversary of Operation Blue Star. The BJP, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, continued its efforts to woo the Sikhs. At a rally in the last leg, Modi raised the fact that one of the Panj Pyaras of Guru Gobind Singh belonged to Gujarat. Apart from the Majhabi Sikhs, he reached out to the Ravidassias, both marginalised communities. A heavyweight campaign In the poll fray this time are a former CM, a former Deputy CM (the Congress’s Charanjit Singh Channi and Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, respectively); five sitting Cabinet ministers (AAP’s Dr Balbir Singh, Gurmeet Singh Khuddian, Laljit Singh Bhullar, Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, and Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer); at least a dozen MLAs, seven sitting MPs, and a state party chief (Congress’s Amarinder Singh Raja Warring). Several constituencies are locked in a five-cornered contest, including CM Bhagwant Mann’s citadel Sangrur, where alongside the four main parties, SAD (A) chief Simranjit Singh Mann, the sitting MP, is in the fray. In Khadoor Sahib, pro-Khalistan organisation Waris Punjab De’s chief Amritpal Singh, who is in jail on NSA charges, is contesting as an Independent. In Faridkot, Sarabjit Singh Khalsa, the son of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassin Beant Singh is also attracting the youth. Gangster-turned-politician Lakha Sidhana is contesting the Bathinda Lok Sabha constituency as a SAD (A) candidate, and also appears to have enthused youth voters.
