Headed for the Assembly polls in about seven months, Punjab has emerged as one of the most unpredictable political battlegrounds in the country, where every major contender sees a path to victory in what could be a fierce, multi-cornered election.
The Sukhbir Badal-led Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), which once dominated Punjab, may be reeling from an existential crisis, but has still continued its attempts to make a comeback in state politics.
Even the BJP, despite its smaller support base in Punjab, harbours aspirations to come to the helm in the border state. The party is buoyed by its landslide victory in the recent West Bengal Assembly polls, where it stormed to power for the first time.
Sacrilege video row
The principal Opposition Congress, which has only 16 MLAs in the 117-member state Assembly, has aimed to capitalise on the sacrilege video row allegedly involving CM Mann that has landed the AAP in a crisis ahead of the polls.
On June 15, the Akal Takht, the highest temporal authority of Sikhs, declared Mann “Guru dokhi” (anti-Guru) and “Khalsa panth virodhi” (anti-Khalsa panth) over the alleged sacrilege video, even as the CM has maintained that he was not in it. Mann has held that the video was “fabricated” to defame him.
The AAP has also been beset with some high-profile defections in recent months. In April, seven of the party’s 10 Rajya Sabha members, led by Raghav Chadha, jumped ship and “merged” with the BJP. Six of these seven defectors were elected as the AAP MPs from Punjab.
Despite these setbacks, the AAP registered a resounding win in the May local body elections, securing a majority in five of eight municipal corporations, 39 of 75 municipal councils, and nine of 20 nagar panchayats across the state.
Congress rifts
While the Congress was expected to benefit from the AAP’s troubles, it has been struggling to put its own house in order amid growing dissension and infighting in its ranks.
The Congress high command recently did a balancing act to revamp the Punjab unit, retaining Amarinder Singh Raja Warring as the state party chief and Partap Singh Bajwa as the Assembly Leader of Opposition (LoP) while naming ex-CM and Warring’s detractor Charanjit Singh Channi as the party poll campaign committee’s chairman. However, the exercise seems to have widened the cracks within the state Congress, with Channi’s supporters launching a campaign against Warring.
An aspirant for the state Congress president’s post, Channi has apparently rallied a slew of senior party leaders, legislators and former ministers to put pressure on the party leadership.
The Congress circles are also abuzz with speculations that there could be defections from the party to the BJP in the coming days.
These developments have given a jolt to the Congress’s rank and file, which have been projecting the party as a formidable challenger to the AAP.
BJP play
BJP insiders say the party is looking to tap into the “contradictions and conflicts” in its rivals to make its mark in the upcoming elections. BJP leaders flag several issues that they claim have fuelled “anti-incumbency” against the Mann government, citing “the AAP dispensation’s mismanagement of last year’s floods, stagnated infrastructure projects and the state’s growing debt crisis”.
The state BJP has been in informal talks with its erstwhile ally SAD in a bid to forge their alliance again. It has pinned hopes on the party-led Centre’s decisions on a number of issues that could create resonance among the people of the state.
State BJP leaders say the Centre may take initiatives for the release of Bandi Singhs (Sikh prisoners) – who have been in jail for several years for alleged involvement in militancy in various parts of the country – and for increase in the percentage of Agniveers (from current 25%) who can be retained in the services after completing their four-year tenure. “Such steps will endear the BJP to the people, creating fresh ways to expand the party in Punjab,” said a state party leader.
Party leaders also claim that by projecting Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the BJP’s face in the elections, the party could dominate six Hindu dominated districts of the state.
The BJP has recently appointed Kewal Singh Dhillon, 76, as its first-ever Jat Sikh state chief. The move is aimed at reaching out to Jat Sikhs, who account for 20-25% of Punjab’s population.
While Nayab Singh Saini, the BJP CM of neighbouring Haryana, campaigns extensively in Punjab these days, senior party leaders like Tarun Chugh and Union Minister Manohar Lal Khattar have also been visiting the state regularly to coordinate the party’s groundwork ahead of the elections.
Despite the BJP’s bid for an alignment with the SAD, Saini told media persons a few days ago that the BJP will not enter into alliance for the Punjab elections.
Fraught scene
Senior leaders from Punjab argue that the prevailing situation in the state is “complex and fraught”.
Senior Congress leader and ex-Union minister Manish Tewari said: “The difficulty is that Punjab is unfortunately facing more existential challenges now than 1966 when it was reorganised. Its public debt is now over Rs 4.77 lakh crore, average land holding size has been reduced to 2.5 to 5 acres and water table has dipped drastically, especially in the rice growing areas of central Punjab. There is no industry, no employment while narco militancy is taking the state back to the 1980s-1990s and unfortunately none of these issues have found any resonance in the public discourse.”
With the AAP rolling out various sops to woo its vote bank despite the deepening debt crisis, the Congress reeling from internal feuds, the SAD not regaining traction, and the BJP still remaining a marginal force, Punjab seems to be under a cloud of uncertainty amid apprehensions that it may provide space to radical elements.
“Punjab requires a political consensus among parties to tackle its existential crisis. Or it requires a government for 60 months that is not interested in coming back to power and can take tough decisions to put the state back on the rails,” Tewari said.
“In the past 34 years, after popular government was restored post militancy while the situation deteriorated, I have not seen a single political leader in the state across political parties do anything substantive to address these existential issues,” he added.
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann. (File Photo) 
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