High Court warning and a year later, Punjab conducts panchayat polls. But cloud over AAP govt still hovers

A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Gurjeet Singh Talwandi, a Shiromani Akali Dal general secretary, challenged the notification.

In August 2023, the Punjab and Haryana High Court asked the government to withdraw the notification, arguing that “the government could not dissolve democratically elected bodies without these completing their stipulated term”.

Left red faced, the government did indeed withdraw the notification and suspended two IAS officers — D K Tiwari, the administrative secretary of Rural Development and Panchayat, and Gurpreet Singh Khaira, the director of Rural Development — for “having misled the government” on the panchayats and their finances.

However, the panchayat elections continued to be delayed.

Insiders in the Punjab administration say the AAP government wanted to hold the elections last year, buoyed by the party’s victory in the Jalandhar Lok Sabha bypoll in May 2023. However, the poor show in the recent Lok Sabha elections — the AAP only won three of the 13 seats in Punjab — made the government delay the panchayat elections further.

In another controversial move, the Punjab Cabinet on September 16 brought in an amendment to the Punjab Panchayati Raj Act (1994) and barred sarpanchs and panchs from contesting elections on party symbols. The State Election Commissioner (SEC) then gave a statement that there would be a list of free symbols that the contestants could choose from, while party symbols would be prohibited.

While Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said this was a way of ensuring “bonhomie” in villages, the Opposition said the move stemmed from the AAP’s fear of losing the panchayats, especially after the Lok Sabha results.

On September 19 came another rap from the HC, which was hearing a clutch of petitions on the panchayat elections. The HC asked the Punjab government when it was planning to conduct the polls.

The same day, the Rural Development and Panchayats Department issued a notification that said the panchayat elections needed to be held before October 20. It would mark five years from the time the last polls were held, in December 2018, under the Congress government led by Amarinder Singh.

In the run-up to the polls, the Opposition, particularly the BJP, alleged that procedural documents required for a panchayat candidate were not given by deputy commissioner of several districts on time. This matter also reached the HC. On October 10, five days before the elections, the HC cancelled elections in 200 villages.

A day before the polls, the HC quashed a thousand other petitions seeking cancellation of elections. This is when the matter reached the Supreme Court, which refused to intervene at this stage.

Now, with the panchayat polls having been contested without symbols, each party is claiming victory. Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring has claimed on X that the party had won “50% to 60%” panchayats in the state; BJP Union Minister of State Ravneet Singh Bittu claims his party got 45% of the contested seats.

The AAP has denied the claims about irregularities.

AAP’s spokesperson Neel Garg took to X to hit out at Warring.

“Double standards exposed! @RajaBrar_INC, you initially claimed @AAPPunjab prevented you from filing nominations, but now boast about winning 50%+ Sarpanch seats. Reality check: Punjab’s villagers rejected @INCPunjab.#AAPWins #CongressDefeated #PunjabPanchayatElections.”