Unkept Congress promises fuel Malwa anger as it warms up to ‘the new’

At the sprawling Fatta Maluka village of Sardulgarh, which falls in Mansa district, the epicentre of the farmer agitation, the young Suman Deep Kaur tells you why she and her friends have decided to move away from the two traditional parties that have ruled Punjab. “It’s been 70 years, the school in our village is only till Class VIII. There are no jobs, the boys do drugs, the water is bad, the roads have craters. Why should we vote for them?”

Harkirat Singh, a telecom engineer sitting with a group of middle-aged men at Bhagi Vandar village, near Talwandi Sabo, tells you about the three youngsters who died of drug overdose in their neighbourhood last year.

It was at Talwandi Sabo, home to one of the five sacred Takhts (seats) of the Sikhs, that former CM Capt Amarinder Singh had sworn on Gutka sahib (a compendium of verses from gurbani) to purge Punjab of drugs in four weeks after coming to power.

The promise had resonated across the region, fetching Congress 40 seats in the 2017 polls, its best ever performance in Malwa since 1997. AAP also bagged 18 of its 20 seats in Malwa, leaving the Akalis with only eight, their worst ever tally in the region.

These numbers are now up in the air.

Even though Amarinder has been replaced, his unkept promise to root out drugs is back to haunt the party, often leading to allegations of collusion between Congress and Akali Dal, which is accused of letting drugs ply in the state during its two successive terms from 2007 to 2017.

In a bid to offset the growing influence of AAP in the region—the CM face Bhagwant Mann is two-time MP from Sangrur—Congress fielded CM Charanjit Singh Channi from two seats here. The party hopes that this, along with naming him as the CM face Sunday, will consolidate the Dalit vote as 20 of the 34 reserved seats also fall in this belt.

But the inability of Congress to stem the flow of drugs, the constant infighting leading to rebels on several seats coupled with the perception that it reacted when it was too late is hurting the party. Also, the Congress has replaced only 11 of its 80 sitting MLAs despite charges of non-performance.

Akalis hope to cash in on this anti-incumbency and the division of votes between AAP and the two new entrants. “Also, how can AAP call itself a new alternative when over half of its candidates are from the other parties?” asks party president Sukhbir Badal.

The BJP, which is going with Capt Amarinder’s Punjab Lok Congress and former Akali heavyweight SS Dhindsa’s Sanyukt Akali Dal, hopes to make a dent in cities.

But the voter has become much more questioning. Their refrain: “We have changed, the times have changed, they (politicians) can’t fool us any longer.”

At his ancestral village of Ugrahan in Sunam, Joginder Singh Ugrahan, president of the biggest farmer union of Punjab, attributes the questioning voter to the long farmer agitation. He says people are angry with the system and they want to go with someone they haven’t experienced before. “It is another matter that the change they are seeking may not come even from this alternative.”

At Bhikhi town, the strapping Balwinder Singh, who runs a bustling motor workshop, says it is lack of attention to basics such as education and health that has led to his widespread desire for change. “We were 20 of us in the village who used to study together. Today only one of us has a job and I have set up this business. You can imagine how much dissatisfaction this causes.”

Youngsters are no longer staying back after Plus Two. At Dabwali Rahurianwala village in the Lambi constituency of Akali patriarch Parkash Singh Badal, Lovedeep Singh, a young farmer, tells you how 27 youngsters from the village took the IELTS route to colleges abroad last year despite the pandemic. “At least 50 more have cleared the test and are awaiting their turn.”

The anger cuts across the rural-urban divide. Both farmers and traders are feeling squeezed by high prices and difficulty of doing business. Traders say people are cutting down on their purchases and decreasing their profit margins. With the cost of inputs rising every season, farming is no longer profitable. The rental or theka for an acre in Malwa is sky high at Rs 70,000 for an acre against Rs 40,000 in Doaba and Majha due to which many farmers have stopped taking land on lease.

Drugs have led to the burgeoning problem of petty crime. At Kotkapura, two women police personnel tell you they don’t use their cellphones while walking because who knows when some youngster hooked on drugs will snatch it. This complaint follows you all across Malwa.

At Jeevan Singh Wala, Shinder Singh, with a long snowy beard, wonders why development doesn’t go beyond repair of lanes and drains. “There is so much corruption. Why are roads always in need of repair? When will we talk of education or health?”

Ask him who he is voting for this time, and he says it’s for the policies of Arvind Kejriwal. “I voted for Congress last time, before that I was a staunch Akali, but now I am voting for Kejriwal’s health and education system.”

Political observers say, traditionally, Punjabis look at three factors while deciding their vote — the candidate, the CM face and the party. But this time, the order seems to have been reversed, says Namarjit Kaur, a political science lecturer at Jaito.

This is true of Talwandi Sabo where people tell you how the sitting AAP candidate Baljinder Kaur never returned to thank them but they might still vote for her due to Bhagwant Mann.

Kaur says AAP’s appeal goes beyond freebies because people are fed up with the existing system where you need to grease palms to get work done. “My husband is a leading doctor, I am well-connected, yet I have problems in getting my property registered.” A trader of Talwandi Sabo claims his son was framed in an NDPS case and the police demanded a hefty bribe.

Then there are places where individual candidates are forcing voters to focus on them, not the party. At Maur, gangster-turned-social activist Lakha Sidhana, who has been fielded by the farmers’ party Sanyukt Samaj Morcha, has an edge. At Abohar, bordering Rajasthan, the locals say Congress’s Sandeep Jakhar has a lead.

Then there is the Dera factor. Akalis came into conflict with the Dera Sacha Sauda, which has a sizeable presence in southern Malwa, after the sacrilege incidents of 2015, and, more recently, the Congress denied a ticket to Harminder Jassi, a relative of the Dera chief. There is a buzz that the Dera followers or premis could support AAP.

Old hands in the poll game, however, say it’s going to be a close contest. “The multiplicity of parties will lead to votes getting splintered. There are committed party votes that do not go anywhere. And then some votes in every village are up for grabs.”