After having charmed the people of Delhi with promises that swept them off their feet last February eventually for them to feel betrayed and cheated, Arvind Kejriwal, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo has turned his attention to Punjab which is slated to go to polls in two years.
As he feeds them on half-truths and tall promises, he is even hinting that he may be a candidate for the Punjab chief minister’s slot, leaving Delhi to his deputy Manish Sisodia. That, if at all, will be if AAP wins Punjab which is too much to expect.
Wily and clever as he is, Kejriwal sees an opportunity in Punjab with the Akali Dal-BJP combine facing acute anti-incumbency and the Congress in disarray due to serious infighting, with PCC chief Partap Singh Bajwa and former chief minister Amarinder Singh at dagger’s drawn.
While Delhi-ites are rueing the day they catapulted him to power with a landslide win, the people of Punjab are getting attracted to the rabble-rouser, slowly but surely. It was Punjab that gave AAP four Lok Sabha seats while the nascent party drew a blank in the Lok Sabha elections elsewhere. Two of the four, however, walked out on Kejriwal when he engineered the expulsion of two AAP stalwarts Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan soon after the resounding win in Delhi.
Kejriwal has energised his Punjab cadres with a target of enrolling 25 lakh new members. The AAP is indeed trying to consolidate the pro-change votes. The party is getting support from mainly the opinion makers like NRIs, doctors, lawyers, teachers, writers, women’s organisations and student bodies.
Clearly, AAP’s move to fight the elections in Punjab is a clever and calculated one. Unless the Akali-BJP combine and the Congress wake up, it would be too late for them to retrieve lost ground and the beneficiary may well be AAP with which the people of Delhi are exasperated and fed up already.
The smart operator that Kejriwal is, he is wooing the Sikhs in Punjab assiduously to polarise a sizeable section of them in his favour. Whether the Punjab voter will fall into his trap or not is anybody’s guess but he can hardly be faulted for not trying. The fact that the election campaign of AAP has already begun in Punjab is a measure of how serious the party is about making inroads in the state.
Kejriwal’s recent statement that had the guilty been punished after the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, incidents like in Gujarat and Dadri would not have happened and “such intolerance” would not have spread, not only reflected his pitch that the Sikhs have been short-changed but also amounts to a dig at the Congress. As it is, his diatribes against the BJP are relentless and direct.
On the 31st anniversary of the anti-Sikh riots, Kejriwal, along with his deputy Manish Sisodia distributed enhanced compensation cheques of Rs 5 lakh each to over 1,300 families who lost their loved ones in the violence that erupted in 1984.
“No one would have dared to spread hatred among people on basis of religion and such intolerance would not have spread in the country,” he said after distributing the cheques in West Delhi. Kejriwal also claimed that “intolerance and hatred is thriving because those perpetrating it know that those in power will protect them”.
As a first step, he is looking to polarise Sikh voters by playing to their hurt sentiments at being given short shrift in taking action against the perpetrators of mayhem against thousands of their kin in the wake of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984.
Considering that people in the state are increasingly getting fed up with the Akali Dal-BJP government, it is logical and prudent to pitch for power or a share in it.
Ordinarily, it is the Congress party that should be the main beneficiary of disillusionment with the Akalis and the BJP in Punjab but that party is in deep turmoil thanks to the serious infighting between the Partap Singh Bajwa and Amarinder Singh factions of the Congress and could lose out on a golden opportunity. Unless the Congress sets its house in order it is destined to fail in capturing power.
Kejriwal evidently reckons that while riding to power on its own steam may be a tall order in Punjab, it could well ride on the shoulders of the Congress in the event of a hung assembly. That in itself would be a big feather in AAP’s cap which the party could build upon to make inroads into other states.
The Akalis are up against charges of collusion in drug peddling which is proving to be a major menace, illegal mining, monopolising transport business and shielding the goons. Corruption is rampant in the state. The Akali Dal is working on a strategy to divide the opposition vote to win the next elections. The party’s President, Sukhbir Singh Badal, is believed to be trying to split the AAP leadership in Punjab. Better governance seems to be low on the Akali agenda.
Making matters worse, the Akalis and the BJP are working at cross purposes. BJP leaders have, of late, started accusing the Akali Dal of colluding with drug runners. On the BJP’s part, there is little effort to revitalise the party in the state. It is being looked upon as a party that is ineffective and weak. The traditional vote banks of the party are slipping away from it.
Clearly, AAP’s move to fight the elections in Punjab is a clever and calculated one. Unless the Akali-BJP combine and the Congress wake up, it would be too late for them to retrieve lost ground and the beneficiary may well be AAP with which the people of Delhi are exasperated and fed up already.
But while it dreams big, it is time AAP begins to do some soul-searching. Not only has it lost leaders like Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav due to the extreme arrogance of its leadership, but even an astute lawyer like H.S. Phoolka has deserted their Punjab unit. Mere political astuteness of its prime leader is not enough. The party must also learn to be accommodative.
