Case against Majitha bid to divert electoral agenda of Punjab Polls February 2022 from survival issues

 

 

Majitha case: Punjab’s electoral narrative getting dictated by unfinished agenda of 2017 polls

Ground Zero

Jagtar Singh

The shocking incident of sacrilege at Darbar Sahib (Golden Temple) and the registration of a case against powerful  Akali leader and former minister Bikram Singh Majitha relating to drug smuggling have revived the very issues on which the 2017 Assembly election was contested. Those very issues seem to be returning to the centre stage in the run up to the February 2022 polls.

Interestingly, Punjab’s electoral discourse has rarely been centred around the issues of survival  and development. Punjab was at one time amongst the most advanced states in the country with well developed infrastructure before its rating started down-sliding. About a month earlier, the issues that were coming to the fore related to survival with political parties out-competing each other by offering to the voters various concessions including cheap to free power and the like.

It was clear that the election in Punjab was turning non-ideological that is not the normal characteristic in this state whose political discourse has always been pushed by Sikh religio-political discourse with its impact on the electoral discourse too. The parties were promising good schools and good hospitals.

However, what was overlooked in the process were the very issues that forced exit of Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh heading the Congress government who was replaced by Charanjit Singh Channi. He was dropped by the party not due to his non-performance on survival issues but the failure to take the Bargari sacrilege related and the drug smuggling cases to the logical conclusion.

The sacrilege and drug smuggling narrative is rooted in the period when the Akali Dal-BJP alliance ruled in the state. The name of Majitha had surfaced in the drug smuggling case during the Badal government. Badal government should have ordered probe during that very period to check its politicisation.

However, the legitimacy of registration of the case against Majitha at this juncture has become questionable in view of a section of the senior police officers having refused to be dictated on this issue, especially after the letter written by a senior police officer S K Asthana got leaked.

The case has now been registered under the new Director General of Police S Chattopadhya for whom Pradesh Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu had been lobbying from the very day Capt Amarinder Singh was removed. The spat between Channi and Sidhu had become too obvious on this issue. Sidhu staked claim in the morning itself for the registration of this case.

Channi is obviously in a hurry to take the unfinished agenda of 2017 to the logical outcome. It can’t be said with certainty that the faction-ridden Congress would harvest political advantage in the February 2022 polls but can take refuge in the argument that it has at least made a move.

Of course, at the political level, this would put to an end the perception that took roots among the people of the Congress in general and Capt Amarinder Singh in particular being in cahoots.

The success of the historic struggle by the farmers was weaving a new political narrative as it was started in Punjab with farmers from the other states joining it. It was the first major victory of any mass struggle having roots in Punjab since 1947.

The issue in Punjab is that of dignified living and the farmers struggle was for survival. The problem, however, is that the political parties were not part of this glorious struggle and perhaps that is the single factor that contributed to its success too. The thinking of one section of the kisan leaders who led this struggle was to function as a pressure group to dictate Punjab’s model of development and focus on survival issues.

The situation is now changing fast, proving once again that Punjab’s political discourse is different.

The issues relating to unfinished agenda of 2017 should not be allowed to divert attention of the people from those relating to dignified existence. The Congress government failed to implement several other issues like complete loan waiver for farmers. This failure can’t be covered up by registering this case.

Punjab has never been so deep in the realm of uncertainty.