In Punjab, Congress hopes for 2017 replay, Opposition return

CHANDIGARH: In the fast-changing

Lok Sabha

poll arena of Punjab, all parties are trying to make their mission possible. For chief minister Amarinder Singh, it is a question of taking advantage of a political scenario where the opposition parties are trying to reinvent themselves. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) faces an uphill task of retaining the 24.4% vote share it got in the last election while SAD has tried hard to disassociate itself from the sacrilege issue.


When Congress got into the poll mode two months back, the political discourse couldn't have been more favourable, with SAD getting brickbats for sacrilege incidents and voters perceiving the faction-ridden AAP to be in absolute disarray.

Sam Pitroda’s ‘hua toh hua’ remark gave welcome ammo to SAD-BJP

However, things have changed fast. If Congress leader Sam Pitroda’s remark has given Akalis and the BJP the ammunition to strike back on the issue of 1984 anti-Sikh riots, AAP is trying to use all its resources to retain its pocket borough Sangrur, besides putting up a fight in a couple of other seats.

If SAD has made the Congress go back to the drawing board by making the Badal couple — Sukhbir and Harsimrat — contest from Ferozepur and Bathinda, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) too has sprung up a surprise by fielding actor Sunny Deol from Gurdaspur. The Congress had won the seat by a huge margin in the 2017 bypoll.

The formal announcement of the

Lok Sabha elections

on March 10 came as the Amarinder Singh government was completing two years in office.

It hoped to take credit for its farm debt waiver scheme and the youth employment programme. However, the magnitude of agriculture crisis in the state is much worse and the limited relief has left farmers unsatisfied. The opposition has picked holes in the employment drives too — accusing the Congress of taking over the annual placement campaigns of colleges.

In addition, many Congress MLAs are already facing anti-incumbency in their areas amid growing expectations, making Amarinder come out with a ‘perform or perish’ diktat for ministers and legislators. Since the party got 77 seats in 2017, many things have changed on the ground.

The run-up to the elections also witnessed futile attempts to stitch together a ‘grand alliance’ by the newly-formed splinter groups of SAD (Taksalis) — floated by SAD rebels — and Punjab Democratic Alliance (PDA) mostly comprising former AAP leaders.

Eventually, the two groups decided to field their own candidates. Except for some prominent ones like Parminder Kaur Khalra contesting from Khadoor Sahib, others have failed to get voters’ attention.

This election also had national-level leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal, campaigning in the state votes in the last phase. BJP has been hyping its core issue of nationalism and Balakot air strike.

If the opposition parties are battling infighting, the Congress too is facing its share of dissidence. Perturbed over being denied party ticket from Gurdaspur, ex-MP from the area Partap Singh Bajwa has stayed away from the party’s campaign.

Besides, Congress star campaigner Navjot Singh Sidhu was sore over not being called to campaign in his own home state after he was ‘not allowed’ to speak at a rally by Congress chief Rahul Gandhi in Moga.

In a fluid political scenario, where the Congress is hopeful of winning the majority of 13 seats in the state, thus improving its 2014 tally of four, the rivals are trying hard to make its ‘Mission 13’ sound unrealistic.