Vanishing food stocks worth Rs 12,000 crore from FCI godowns in Punjab spells trouble all around: for the banks who extend credit to the state for food procurement, the farmers waiting to encash their produce and most of all for the BJP, trapped in an awkward alliance with the increasingly unpopular Shiromani Akali Dal. The Centre’s Rs 10,000 crore bailout is only the latest in a series of bitter pills the BJP has had to swallow in Punjab.
GIVEN that the SAD-BJP’s flagrant misgovernance has sent its approval ratings plummeting, along with the state’s economy, it is hard to understand why the BJP is so reluctant to part ways with the Akalis. Rather than quit the alliance, it appears to have written off the state in electoral terms.
Given that the SAD-BJP’s flagrant misgovernance has sent its approval ratings plummeting, along with the state’s economy, it is hard to understand why the BJP is so reluctant to part ways with the Akalis. Rather than quit the alliance, it appears to have written off the state in electoral terms.
Navjot Singh Sidhu, arguably the BJP’s most popular face in Punjab, has been steadily marginalised owing to his acrimonious relationship with the Badals. He famously vacated the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat (after three consecutive wins) for Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in 2014, only to watch him crash and burn. The BJP cadre read the defeat as testimony to the SAD’s unpopularity and agitated for a divorce, but the central leadership did not agree. Sidhu, who has been flirting with the AAP, has made it clear that he will not campaign in the assembly polls as long as the alliance holds.
The BJP suffered further embarrassment last year, when the assistant to the then BJP party chief, Kamal Sharma, was arrested on a bribery charge. Sharma, ironically, is close to both Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and Jaitley.
For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who makes such a virtue of good governance, it must be hard indeed to stand by and watch as Punjab’s economy flounders and the onslaught of drug, liquor and land mafias – said to enjoy political patronage – undermines its social fabric. Punjab’s debt to GDP ratio stands at 32 per cent, resulting in a crippling interest burden. The CAG, in its report for 2014-15, said the state was headed towards a debt trap, with most of its borrowings used to pay off old debts. Yet, it spent nearly Rs 6,000 crore on free electricity to farmers in 2015-16.
Last year, struggling to pay salaries, Punjab mortgaged public properties including jails and homes for widows, in order to raise funds! Then, in order to reassure the reading public that all was well with the state, it spent crores on an advertisement campaign in national dailies. How the state intends to pay off its staggering debt remains a mystery.
The contrast between the state’s economy and that of the Badal family is stark, pointing to a serious conflict of interest. The family dominates private transport with a fleet of luxury buses and owns five- and seven-star hotels and TV channels (PTC News, PTC Punjabi and PTC Chak De, all of which enjoy revenue from state advertisements).
The BJP has not only turned a blind eye to the Badal shenanigans, but helped out on occasion. When Revenue minister Bikram Singh Majithia, Sukhbir Badal’s brother-in-law, was questioned by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with a multi-crore international synthetic drugs racket, the Centre obligingly transferred the officer who had summoned him!
The Congress has charged the SAD-BJP government with patronising drug cartels. Given that the armed militants who attacked the Pathankot air force base this January, are said to have used drug-smuggling channels, the accusation becomes extremely serious.
The anti-Badal lobby in the BJP devoutedly hopes that the central leadership, namely Jaitley, will agree to part ways with the SAD before Punjab goes to polls next year. Failing which its only hope is that the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress, fortified by the entry of Manpreet Badal, will divide the opposition vote by squaring off against each other. Manpreet Badal, the former finance minister of the state, who would have been a prize catch for any party, was untouchable for the BJP because of his history with his cousin Sukhbir. The SAD, once an asset for the BJP at the Centre, has now become a liability, making it hard for Modi to occupy the high moral ground on corruption, black money and good governance.
