Bids from political parties in Punjab to buy votes for February 2022 going up but state needs empowerment and not freebies

 

Bids from stake holders going up for Punjab February 2022 polls

Ground Zero

 

Jagtar Singh

 

Bidding process that was earlier triggered by Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party convener Arvind Kejriwal with the announcement of 300 units of free power across the board to domestic consumers is witnessing stiff competition among the stake holders to buy votes.

Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal has raised the bid to 400 units.

Both these bids are accompanied by what the bidders claim to be their “guarantees”.

An interesting bid has now come from Navjot Singh Sidhu who has recently been entrusted with the presidency of the state Congress to blunt the very anti-incumbency of his own party government headed by Capt Amarinder Singh.

He today tweeted his speech offering  “government of the Congress workers and people of Punjab”, whatever it means coming from the otherwise ruling party chief.

The only interpretation of this bid is that the Capt Amarinder Singh’s government has failed on  the criteria of being the Congress government although officially it is so.

It is, of course, an open secret that the party workers have been voicing their grievances at various levels and manifesting their anger and alienation all along.

What has led to this situation is inaccessibility of Capt Amarinder Singh not just to his party MLAs but even the ministers from the very beginning. The Covid situation has nothing to do with this inaccessibility.

He was seen in his office in Punjab secretariat after a long time when Sidhu along with his four working presidents called on him formally after taking over. His visibility has since increased.

This alienation of the Congress workers is rooted in the outsourcing of this government.

But that is internal problem of the Congress in Punjab.

The issue here is that the organisational wing of the Congress in Punjab is making promises to the people just like other parties in the opposition domain. This situation is unprecedented.

If the government headed by Capt Amarinder Singh failed to nail that liquor and sand mafia, it is failure of the Congress government but the promises that are being made amount to disowning of the present regime.

Anyway, it should be the concern of Congress higher ups like Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi.

However, the situation is not just highly interesting but also borders ridiculous.

Navjot Singh Sidhu has started his new inning and he has to raise the bar.

Ironically, the problems experienced by the people in this border state are the same as on the even of the February 2017 elections that ended 10 year uninterrupted rule of the Akali Dal-BJP government.

Punjab is a state in which the prosperity of the people and that of the ruling class are in inverse proportion. Punjab has gone down below many of the laggard states while rising prosperity of the ruling classes is too visible and multiplying during the same period.

Hence the bids to buy votes. Politics is now among the most paying business.

The people should know that neither Kejriwal nor Sukhbir would give them free power from their own pockets. The free power would come at the cost of the state exchequer. It is the direct and indirect tax paid by the people that fills the exchequer and the deficit is met by raising loans that again has to be repaid by the people.

Such offers of freebies at the cost of the state coffers amount to befooling the people.

The concept of a welfare state is different from offering freebies.

The welfare state invests in human resources that has long term returns.

India has the example of Kerala that initially invested heavily in education and then in health sectors.

Punjab needs empowerment of state’s economy and people and not empowerment of the members of the ruling clique.

This model needs to be reversed.

Education, health and farm sectors in Punjab need heavy and long term investment.

Covid has proved globally that the free market model has collapsed.

The political parties in Punjab should compete in offering model of empowerment of people rather than turning them into beggars.