The State of Abandonment

DARSHAN SINGH IS a middling farmer from Moga in Punjab. With 11 acres of farmland he is certainly above the ruck of marginal farmers who populate this Assembly constituency in the heart of Punjab. He is also very vocal about his politics.

“AAP ne Dilli nu lishka ta. School vi wadiya ne te ilaj vi theek ho janda hai. Aitha na ta master prana aunde ne ten a doctor aande ne. Saare paise mang de ne (The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has spruced up Delhi. Schools are functioning properly and medical help is also available. But here teachers and doctors don’t work. Everyone wants money).”

The comment probably sums up the state of perception politics in this part of Punjab. What Singh says is a bit over the top as Moga not only has schools but boasts multiple hospitals as well. And yet, that has not prevented a general trend in favour of AAP. The trend and talk about the ‘Delhi Model’ is widespread even if no one knows the details of what it is all about. When probed, Singh says he does not know much about what is happening in Delhi but “it is definitely better than here”. Has he been to Delhi? He camped along with other farmers on the outskirts of the capital but has never been to Delhi proper.

What is happening in Moga is interesting from many angles. The district is considered the political centre of gravity in the state. The Assembly seat has remained with Congress for the most part. But in 2017, AAP came within striking distance when its candidate lost by just under 2,000 votes to Congress. The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) candidate was edged out to a distant third spot.

This is a story being witnessed in many constituencies across the Malwa region. Once a fortress of SAD, the area is witnessing a keen contest between Congress and AAP.

At least, that is what seems to be the case on the surface. But then consider Moga again. This January, Congress’ sitting Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA), Harjot Kamal Singh, shifted to BJP after the party gave its ticket to Malvika Sood, the sister of actor Sonu Sood. AAP, too, has changed its candidate here and, this time, Amandeep Kaur Arora—the vice president of its state women’s wing—has been given the ticket. If that were not enough, the Sanyukt Samaj Morcha (SSM)—the political front of the agitating farmers—has also thrown its hat in the ring. The result is a multi-cornered contest where even a very small difference in the number of votes can make or break political fortunes.

But cutting across party lines, the demands from voters are nearly identical: they want loans taken by farmers to be waived, quality healthcare to be provided free, and ever-increasing Minimum Support Prices (MSPs). In many other constituencies, there is demand that illegal sand-mining—a rampant practice in Punjab with deep political roots—should be ended.

It is interesting to note that AAP has couched its campaign in these populist themes and it has been promising the moon to voters across the state. This has struck a chord with almost everyone Open talked to.

AAP’s core area of strength lies in Malwa where it is locked in competition with Congress. In 2017, too, it had hoped to make a clean sweep of the region and form the government in Chandigarh. Despite its impressive performance, the party managed to get precious few seats outside the region.

Can it change its fortunes this time?

To be sure, there is a lot of buzz around the party across the state. But that has also led Congress—acutely aware of the danger posed by AAP—to wake up and launch its campaign with vigour. Incumbent Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi has been juggling the administrative and political sides of his job from the day he was elevated to the post.

THE TIME IS late on Tuesday evening (February 8th) and the chief minister has not arrived at the venue for a party gathering in Batala. Braving the cold, the crowd is irate and restless. It is left to the local leaders to “manage the stage” so that people don’t go away. Finally, when Channi turns up, there is palpable excitement in the crowd. Far more than an election rally, Channi is in Batala on a fire-fighting mission. The district unit has seen heavy factional fighting and is ‘split’ into three units. With both AAP and SAD snapping at its heels, there is no way Congress can fight the elections in this state. But after a reassuring speech, he leaves.

“Channisahib has spoken to all the leaders here. He has emphasised the difficult fight not just in constituencies here in Batala and around but across Punjab. Our leaders have understood and are united now,” says a close associate of a former MLA who lost elections earlier.

At the moment, these are soothing words meant perhaps for the speaker who utters them. But Congress cannot be written off yet.

This is perhaps the most complicated election that Punjab has seen since Independence. In a ‘normal’ Assembly election in the state, there are clear indicators of political currents well ahead of the polls. This time, there is nothing but a welter of disparate opinions, claims and counterclaims. What are the reasons for this state of affairs?

The first thing worth noting in the current election season is the multi-cornered contest in practically all Assembly seats. In a normal election, there are plenty of candidates on the ballot but most are superfluous and the electorate is well aware of that. This time round, all the parties—and their candidates—in the fray have their pockets of influence in virtually all seats.

On top of this, the political positioning of the parties is clustered around a populist agenda in all cases. For example, AAP is promising ₹ 1,000 per month for all women. The Congress government has, in turn, reduced power tariff by ₹ 3 per unit since last November and has waived off pending water bills and reduced the tariff on water. Its manifesto is likely to promise more populist measures. SAD—the pioneer of populism in Punjab—has since last year been making announcements on a number of sops it would dish out in case it is elected again.

On February 8th, SSM went even further when it released its ikrarnama or ‘contract with the people’ in Chandigarh. In its document, SSM promised `25,000 per month to every family of farmers and MSPs for all crops, fruits and vegetables. Even by Punjab’s reckless standards of populism, this is the farthest any party has gone. In addition, there were political clauses in the document, such as repealing of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 and other ‘black laws’. SSM also wants to end ‘over-centralisation’ of power in India.

The result of these very similar election promises is a big factor in creating uncertainty. If the choices available to voters are practically identical, there is no way to understand the outcome just 10-odd days before voting. Even the parties are uncertain and hence their search for something ‘extra’ that can make them stand out before voters.

Congress’ reluctance to announce a chief ministerial face has been interpreted as an attempt to wriggle out of the difficult situation it found itself in with its top two leaders vying for the top job. But finally, on February 6th, when Rahul Gandhi announced Charanjit Singh Channi as the party’s “CM face”, the outcome came almost as deus ex machina. There are 25 constituencies in the state where the Dalit population ranges anywhere from 70,000 to 1.2 lakh and the announcement is expected by Congress leaders to go down well with Dalit voters. In an election that has almost turned into a constituency-by-constituency fight, 25 seats can make or mar the ruling party’s chance. This, in turn, has led to silent counter-mobilisations by SAD and other parties along caste and—often unsaid and unstated—religious axes.

The result is that every announcement, move and action by a party and its rivals leads to a series of countervailing actions and reactions, making political mobilisation akin to the motion of wheels within wheels.

HOW DID PUNJAB, a classic two-party state, become a rather unpredictable battleground? The change has been bubbling for a while even if it was not obvious at the electoral level. The first stirrings of change came in late 2016 when across the Malwa belt—the political centre of gravity of the state in the south—youth disaffection with the two main parties, Congress and SAD, burst out in the open. In its debut election in 2017, AAP managed to wrest 18 of the 69 seats up for grabs and edged SAD to a distant third spot with just eight seats. Malwa, for a very long time, was the Akali bastion in Punjab.

Had matters rested there, this would have been a straight contest between Congress and AAP. But after a full year of agitation by farmers, the ouster of Amarinder Singh from Congress, and his forming a new party and joining hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), there are now multiple challengers in each seat.

The result is that Punjab has over the past five years moved away from a situation where a state-wide political trend and changes could be discerned every five years. With AAP’s entry in 2017, the battle turned into a region-by-region fight in the three parts of Punjab (Malwa, Doaba and Majha). This year, the level of contest has gone below the regional level, almost to a seat-by-seat level. This is one of the toughest electoral battles to be witnessed in Punjab in many decades.

What is interesting in these elections is that while political competition is severe to the point of being savage, politics seems to have been hollowed out. Corruption, drugs and populism are central concerns for everyone—voters, candidates and political parties—but there is not a whimper about the invisible elephant in the room: How did Punjab, the richest state in India, the first state to escape mass poverty within decades of Independence, lose its vitality to the point that it is now an economic basket case? In the 1980s, Punjab was at the top of the per capita income league tables, well-above even the industrialised states of that time. Four decades later, it is just a notch above the all-India average and far below its former peers. There is no chance, for the foreseeable future, that it will be able to recover its fortunes. No voter, and certainly no political party, even wants to mention that fact.

Also Read: More stories on Assembly Elections 2022

Amarinder SinghArvind KejriwalAssembly electionCharanjit Singh ChanniElection 2022Navjot Singh SidhuPunjab