It’s anybody’s game in Punjab

As assembly elections are round the corner, this is the time to reflect on the long-term electoral trends that have been visible in Punjab and whether the coming election confirms them or whether there are some important deviations.

In terms of conforming to the trends, first, one can refer to the continuing presence of three distinct electoral regions—Malwa, Doaba and Majha—each of which has its own specific electoral issues and voting pattern. A second continuity is that the electoral campaign has been dominated by issues related to development and governance—not the ethnic issues of Punjab’s troubled past. Third, on the flip side, competitive populism/patronage based on clientelistic rather than programmatic politics has continued with all the parties making tall promises.

The only exception is the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which, following its Delhi experiment, has issued specific manifestos for specific social categories like Dalits, youth, farmers, businessmen, government servants and women. In a grim reminder of the lopsided polity of the state, women make up only 7% of the candidates while all the important leaders of the three main parties—Akali Dal, Congress and AAP —continue to be Jat Sikhs.

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However, there are important deviations too. First, the stable bipolar party system that has prevailed in Punjab since 1997, has finally come to an end. In a minor deviation, the Congress party has not entered into an alliance with the Left, unlike in the past. But the real electoral shift began with the win of the debutant AAP in four out of 17 Lok Sabha seats in 2014, all from the Malwa region.

Despite the setbacks the party has suffered in the form of dissidence/expulsion/allegation against the state party unit leaders sent from Delhi, the AAP has continued to have a sizeable electoral presence, especially in the important Malwa region that has as many as 69 out of 117 assembly seats. What strengthens the case for AAP is the fact that it polled 24% of the votes in the 2014 elections when it was not considered a winnable party, while this time the party is being talked about as one of the winnable parties.

Second, the Akali Dal, which has always depended on its core social constituency of rural voters, especially the Jat Sikh landed peasantry, is facing an alienated rural constituency on account of repeated crops failures followed by inadequate and erratic compensation, spurious pesticides being distributed by the government, a flawed crop procurement process adopted by government agencies, farmers’ suicides and the issue of minimum support price.

Third, although leadership has always been an important factor in Punjab politics, as one can infer from the colossal impact of Parkash Singh Badal, this time what is new is that someone like Arvind Kejriwal—neither a Punjabi nor a Sikh—has been able to match the mass appeal of Badal senior as well as Captain Amarinder Singh, a formidable Congress leader.

Fourth, since 1992, there has been a clear majority in successive assemblies for the party in power—whether it is the Congress or Congress in alliance with CPI/CPM or the Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) combine. However, this time there is a distinct possibility of a hung assembly which would throw up interesting scenarios.

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Fifth, for the first time there has been due emphasis on the youth as a distinct voting community as evident in the promises made out them by all the parties. This is not only due to sheer numbers—in Punjab, 53% of voters fall in the age group of 18-39 —but also because of emerging evidence that they can vote distinctly differently from their family elders.

One possible reason may be that the youth has suffered the most from the agrarian crisis and flight of industries that have led to massive unemployment. In a CSDS-NES poll survey held after the 2014 general election, 40% of respondents in the 18-35 age group reported voting for AAP. The survey also revealed that the youth credited AAP more than any other party for raising issues of their critical concern—drugs, mafia-style corruption, unemployment, and widespread use of coercion by men in power.

Sixth, in a development related to the newfound assertion of the youth, it is the social media that has trumped print and electronic media during the campaign, unheard of in the past. The electronic media in particular suffered in credibility due to the monopolization of the cable industry by Akali Dal supporters, blocking Punjabi channels which could have highlighted critical voices. The social media has not only got traction due to the youth factor but also due to the role of the Punjabi diaspora that has—in a repeat of the 2014 elections—emerged as an important segment of active campaigners.

Arguably, this is the most interesting election in the political history of Punjab—one that can very well turn out to be a game changer.

Ashutosh Kumar, is a professor at the Department of Political Science, Panjab University, Chandigarh.