Political agenda for polls February 2022 in Punjab would evolve from present churning as AAP promises Sikh face
Punjab political arena turning chaotic
Ground Zero
Jagtar Singh
With the Assembly elections a few months away due in
February 2022, Punjab’s religio-political discourse has started dictating its
electoral discourse which at present is chaotic. The agenda for this election
would evolve from this churning. At the same time, there are issues on which
the political parties don’t like to focus.
One can begin with one such issue.
The ruling class in Punjab has been turning filthily rich
over the years while the per capita income in this once the most advanced states
in the country has been going down. Punjab is now counted among the laggard
states. This is a major contradiction in itself.
Nothing can be more explanatory than thousands of farmers
from Punjab who have been camping at the doors of the capital commanding
national struggle that is for their very survival threatened by the three farm
laws thrust on the farm sector by the Narendra Modi government on the logic of
opening it up to liberalisation on the diktats of the World Bank.
Amul is among the best success stories in cooperative
sector. Punjab Markfed was once the biggest cooperative venture in Asia but failed.
Punjab’s milk products symbol Verka is still controlled by bureaucrats who lack
in vision. One can compared the ads of Amul and Verka on TV, forget everything
else. Amul has expanded in Punjab.
At the time when Bengaluru was planning IT city, Punjab was
experimenting with a multipurpose animal husbandry project in Kal Jharani
village near Badal village. This project too failed. While the young people from
the South go to USA and Canada to take up jobs in IT and management sectors,
the youth for Punjab mostly become drivers. This is the Punjab crisis, not just
the debt burden.
These are the issues that the ruling classes in Punjab just
don’t like to address. The problem is not the lack of autonomy that some
leaders would like the people to believe. The level of autonomy is same in
Karnataka, Hyderabad and Punjab. It is lack of vision and commitment to people and Punjab. Fight for the
autonomy too but don’t ignore the concerns of the common people.
The churning process that has been triggered in Punjab is
throwing two important issues that has the potential to dictate the electoral
discourse and these are the sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib and the farmers
struggle. Both have the multiplier effect at different levels.
The farmers are leading the struggle not for the protection
of their own rights but also the common consumers as well. The issue of
sacrilege is important for the stability of this sensitive border state in the
long run and thus impacts everybody.
It is in this background that the former inspector general of police Kunwar Vijay
Partap Singh joining the Aam Aadmi Party and public rumbling of once BJP MP
turned Congress MLA Navjot Singh Sidhu has to be assessed. Both of them claim they
have agenda for Punjab.
Even at the cost of being perceived to be a cynic, it is
pertinent to recall here in this context that hen Akali Dal president Parkash
Singh Badal in the run up to the February 1997 Assembly election used to sell
the dream of transforming Punjab into California. That dream perhaps got
deleted from his memory after people gave massive mandate to him and his party.
In the context of sacrilege, the issue is not that the probe
carried out by Kunwar Vijay Partap was influenced by his political ambition.
The issue is that the sacrilege took place and the Sikhs who
were demanding justice were fired upon by the police under the Akali Dal
government. That narrative is spread over a period. The non-Akali Sikhs continue
to seek justice while it was the Akali Dal that for years used to articulate
Sikh concerns. The probe has to be taken to the logical conclusion and answers
have to be provided.
It is interesting that both Sidhu and Kunwar Vijay Partap
are focussing on the sacrilege issue.
Kunwar was just one of the five members of the SIT that was
constituted to probe the Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan firing. Four members toed a
different line. Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh should have effectively
intervened at that very stage to change the members. That has landed the probe
into this mess as only one member carried out the investigation in such a sensitive
case. Was there some design in that?
Interestingly, the no holds barred attack of Navjot Singh
Sidhu targeting Capt Amarinder Singh
coincides with the visit of Delhi Chief Minister and AAP convenor Arvind
Kejriwal to Amritsar to admit Kunwar Vijay Partap into his party.
Kejriwal used this opportunity to announce that his party
would present a credible Sikh face to people of Punjab shortly to command the
electoral battle.
Wait for outcome of the chaos.
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