Opinion | In Punjab, it’s advantage Congress in this lacklustre poll

In Punjab’s Lok Sabha elections, it is time to reflect on whether it is just another election or if it has parted with the past. Continuity was reflected with the return of bipolarity with Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) combine and the incumbent Congress. AAP, which registered a meteoric rise in the 2014 elections, is facing an existential crisis with organizational weakness and leadership crisis. There is also a third front of minor parties/rebel factions. A section of AAP rebels led by Sukhpal Khaira have formed Punjab Ekta Party, which has been instrumental in forming Punjab Democratic Alliance (PDA) with other minor parties.

Akali Dal factionalism continues with rebel Akali leaders forming Akali Dal (Taksali) led by veterans. Taksalis have blamed the Badal family for the party’s electoral debacle in the 2017 assembly elections.

In a state where sect and religion play a greater role in electoral choice than caste, the Akali Dal has been haunted by the Badals’ alleged role in the SGPC pardon for a sect head who had impersonated the 10th Sikh Guru apart from a police firing on people. The Badal government’s perceived failure to check the drug and mining mafia has also pushed the party on the defensive.

The Congress government is now in the dock for the drug menace, the same issue that brought it to power in the 2017 assembly election. The campaign is over the same old electoral issues like agrarian distress, farmers’ suicides, poor governance, corruption and failure to fulfil promises. That religion counts in the state is also made clear by the way both the Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP have been taking credit for the Kartarpur Corridor. Despite the Sacha Sauda fiasco, parties and leaders have been quietly courting the dera heads for their followers’ votes.

What is new is that Akali Dal, like its long-standing ally BJP, is campaigning solely in the name of Narendra Modi and on issues flagged by BJP like national security and surgical strikes, little realising that except in the border region of Gurdaspur which also neighbours Jammu, this is not finding resonance as people know that in case of escalation of hostility, they would suffer the most. Again, unlike the past, it is the BJP contesting from its three fixed seats which seems much more assured than Akalis who had to put up Badal junior to contest along with his wife Harsimrat Kaur to enthuse the cadres.

In the overall scenario, it looks like an advantage for Congress. In most of the seats as most leaders have tacitly accepted the leadership of Captain Amarinder Singh who is the sole face of the Congress campaign and has played a major role in giving or denying party tickets. The government is, however, being blamed for his lack of grasp on administration, inaccessibility, neglect of party workers and most importantly, failure to turn around the state’s economy. So would PDA be able to surprise everyone? One must wait till 23 May for the outcome of this unusually lacklustre election from Punjab.

Ashutosh Kumar is a professor in the department of political science at Panjab University in Chandigarh.