AAP victory in Jalandhar Lok Sabha bypoll heralds major change in Punjab's traditional political dynamics

 

Jalandhar Lok Sabha result: AAP has arrived, BJP on way to Punjab

Ground Zero

Jagtar Singh

Chandigarh: Aam Aadmi Party has finally arrived. This comment might seem odd after 92-seat massive mandate in February 2022 Assembly elections. It is not.

Another signal that the Jalandhar Lok Sabha election result emanates is that the Bharatiya Janata Party  is on way to Punjab. This Hindutva outfit was a junior partner in alliance with once Panthic party that is Shiromani Akali Dal since 1997 Assembly elections.

In Jalandhar, AAP has succeeded in capturing the very seat that the Congress had held in the last three successive Lok Sabha elections and that too with a huge margin.

The death of Chaudhary Santokh Singh necessitated this by-election and the Congress had fielded his wife Karamjit Kaur, a retired educationist.

Shiromani Akali Dal has once again failed to show any sign of revival after having hit the rock bottom in its history of more than a century. It is the second oldest party in India after the Congress.

The Punjab political dynamics for the last several decades has been  equated with wheat-paddy rotation that characterized the state beginning with green revolution in farm sector that coincided with re-organisation of Punjab in 1966 leading to emergence, for the first time in history, of a Sikh majority region. The Sikhs have been rulers of this land that is known as the Land of the Sikhs with major part now in Pakistan but this community was the third population dimension.

AAP succeeded in adding third dimension to this traditional bipolar polity in 2022. Earlier in 2017, this party had managed to replace Akali Dal as the main Opposition in the Assembly but the party seemed to be tottering, facing one bottleneck after the others.

However, the situation took a dramatic turn in February 2022 when the people of Punjab decided to decisively marginalize the Akali Dal and the Congress. The Akali Dal-BJP alliance ended in 2020 during farmers’ struggle as the Akalis came under strong pressure.

The party that had been given massive mandate by the people faced unexpected humiliation in the face of rejection by the people within four months in Sangrur Lok Sabha byelection. The humiliation was all the more deeper as the seat had been vacated by chief minister Bhagwant Mann himself.

It is in this context that AAP has now finally arrived, thereby making the political discourse multi-polar. The party has succeeded in re-capturing the imagination of the people.

This far-reaching transformation has also to be studied in the context of the fact that the political discourse in Punjab both traditionally and historically has been driven by the Sikh religio-political discourse.

AAP seems to be alive to this fact of Sikh religio-political discourse dictating state’s political discourse that in turn impacts the election discourse. The effort to push the cases associated with what is known as Bargari sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib towards the logical conclusion signals that awareness.

Of course, there are governance issues too but most important is the engine that drives the discourse.

Another significant and  interesting dimension is the ground gained by the BJP as it is for the first time since 1997 that this party entered the election arena in this strategic state without its traditional partner and achieved partial success in the sense that this party managed to capture two Assembly segments out of nine  with the seven others going to AAP.

Akali Dal was in the field in alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party. BSP has strong pockets in this region. This alliance just managed to save security deposit.

It is clear the Akali Dal has to go for major course correction to recapture its eroded base. The party has been facing crisis since desertion of senior leaders started in 2017 and that trend has continued. The leaders who are still with the party are known to be in a dilemma. The leadership must be reminded that winning elections is not the only objective of this party.

The problem with the Sikh religio-political matrix is that the effective alternative leadership is not emerging.

The present leadership has failed to understand the Sikh psyche. It is the Panthic psyche that has always been the force driving the Akali Dal but the party leadership distanced itself from this dimension in 1996. The result is the present disaster. Bargari tragedy too is rooted in this distancing and subsequent looking for alternatives.

Strategically located Punjab dominated by an aggressive and dynamic minority is the only state in the country whose religio-political dynamics is different from all other states. Sikh religion is humanistic, non-discriminatory and ideologically progressive. The practice might have witnessed certain distortions under influence of what is known as the Hindu value system. It is this state that is perceived to have the capacity to confront Hindutva, despite BJP’s earlier alliance with the Akalis. Here distinction has to be made between Shiromani Akali Dal that supported Hindutva agenda including scrapping of Article 370 and the Sikh religio-political discourse. It is this discourse that counters Hindutva march.

BJP has been designing its strategy to expand  at its own in this state and facilitating emergence of alternative Sikh leadership too of late. It might become all the more imperative here after decisive defeat of Hindutva agenda in Karnataka.

The alternative Sikh leadership can emerge only if election is held to the general house of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee which has  been overdue. The choice has to be made by the BJP leadership. The SGPC is a statutory body under the Sikh Gurdwara Act 1925.

It is in this context that the Jalandhar Lok Sabha by-election result has potential to transform Punjab’s discourse permanently.

At the time when Punjab’s political dynamics is undergoing major transformation, the state needs a new agenda in tune with the modern times, not just the traditional federalism and the like.

Economies are now driven by the market forces and the agendas too evolve accordingly.