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.