Testing time for Bhagwant Mann as Assembly mandates him to counter challenges posed by Modi government on historical issues

 

Test for Bhagwant Mann after Assembly mandate to prove he means business on Punjab issues

 

Ground Zero

Jagtar Singh

 

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, whose party has debut in this politically volatile border state after emerging as the main opposition in 2017, might have realised that the challenges are posed to those in power from altogether different domain and not from schools, colleges and hospitals on which its campaign had been centred.

After the party was backed by the people with unprecedented mandate to provide better governance, the non-BJP parties in the Assembly today stood like a rock behind him while expressing unreserved confidence in him to take up the commanding role associated with his office to protect the interests of this state that constitute historical baggage.

The one-day special session of the Assembly today adopted the resolution amidst walk out by the Bharatiya Janata Party  that called upon the state government  to take up with the Centre the transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab at the earliest.

This session had been convened on this one-point agenda only apparently to convey to the Modi government that the new AAP government in this state means business. The provocation for this resolution was the implementation of the service rules for the central government employees to the Chandigarh employees.

However, this is not just implementation of the central service rules.

The union territory status of Chandigarh was to be a temporary arrangement till Haryana moved out. Punjab has witnessed several agitations on this issue since 1966 but the status quo continues. The new arrangement virtually changes the very character of the city to a permanent union territory and thus Punjab would end up as the only state in the country without its own capital city despite the fact that Chandigarh was planned as its capital after having been divested of Lahore that  became part of Pakistan.

Chandigarh was built after uprooting Punjabi speaking people and mainly the people from Punjab built their houses here. However, the migrant construction labour changed its demographic character in 1961 census. This is at the root of this problem. That is now history but the issue is that of the roots of this problem.

From the city of bureaucrats, Chandigarh has now development as a corporate service city.

Two issues that have been the most politicised since 1966 are Chandigarh and the river waters dispute between Punjab and Haryana. The farmers in the two states have now understood as to how the Satluj Yamuna Link Canal issue has been exploited by the political interests while the reality is different.

The problem is that such issues continue to be politicised. There was no need to disturb the arrangement in  Bhakra Beas Management Board.

Not that such a situation has arisen for the first time or that the Punjab Assembly has adopted such a resolution for the first time.

At one level, this has become a ritual. Of course, Assembly backed action has been taken twice earlier in case of the SYL Canal.

It is pertinent to mention that even during the agrarian struggle, the Punjab Assembly had authorised Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh to lead an all-party delegation to the prime minister. However, he never took the initiative. But then the Congress and the Akali Dal have been punished by the people for their misdeeds.

Delhi and Punjab used to be in confrontation repeatedly after 1947 and that situation continues to erupt time and again.

Punjab used to be ruled either by the Congress or the Akali Dal and Akali Dal too used to be part of the government at the centre beginning 1977.

However, the issues rooted in the re-organisation of Punjab in 1966 have turned into historical baggage and are now part of Punjab’s permanent faultlines.

These faultlines have the tendency to erupt from time to time.

Bhagwant Singh Mann today made the assertion that “We know how to govern”.

It is time that he now comes out with a new approach to deal with the faultlines.

What was lacking earlier was commitment and dedication.

The massive mandate that AAP received in February 2022 has many lessons to learn and shape the political discourse accordingly.

Today’s Assembly mandate is the first test for Mann.