Situation fluid for both AAP, Congress in Punjab as they face 2024

VISHAL GULATI

Chandigarh, June 24 (IANS) As the fight between the state ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the main Opposition (Congress) escalates, hopes about their collective strength in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in 2024 in Punjab diminish, say political observers.

The situation, they say, seems fluid for both the archrivals.

Both AAP and the Congress have never been on the same page in the state politics, which is largely dominated by the Congress and the Akali Dal, since the former's meteoric rise in the 2014 parliamentary polls.

"The rift over the Centre's ordinance on control of bureaucrats in Delhi between AAP and the Congress further escalates, it will neither be beneficial for the latter nor for the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls," an observer told IANS.

Since the 15-month helm of AAP, which trounced the traditional players that ruled the state for over seven decades by capturing 92 out of the 117 Assembly seats, has edge over all rivals, the Bhagwant Mann-led dispensation has sharp differences with all Opposition parties -- the Congress, the BJP and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).

AAP on Friday at the mega Opposition meeting, hosted by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to chalk out a roadmap for the formation of an anti-BJP front for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, made it clear that it will be difficult for it to be part of any alliance where the Congress is.

Missing no opportunity, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann is often accusing the BJP and the Congress working together to topple the AAP government.

In the present political scenario, the BJP, riding high on the Modi popularity, is gung-ho on its prospects in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, while the Congress is yet to re-emerge from its own shadows -- first to challenge the ruling AAP and then to counter the saffron brigade, which is largely banking on the sections deserting it, largely Jat Sikhs, to strengthen its base.

Also, the state's once prominent regional outfit Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), which marked its centennial in 2021, is facing its worst crisis "structurally, organisationally, and even in terms of ideological leadership" with the mass exodus of leaders, even veterans with grey flowing beards.

Now SAD is going back on its "panthica (Sikh religious) agenda to win back its core base of the Sikhs, particularly in rural belts, after the backlash to the 2015 sacrilege incidents and subsequently its initial support to the Centre's (now repealed) farm laws.

Of late, SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal apologised for past errors and requested those who left the party to come back.

"If I am at fault anywhere I apologise for the same but we must all unite to defeat the forces who want to weaken the panth," he asserted, while welcoming two Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) members, who had supported the candidature of Bibi Jagir Kaur in November last year for the post of president of the gurdwara body, into SAD.

For the weakened Congress, which ruled the state from 2017-2022, the mass exodus of leaders, comprising loyal and veteran lawmakers like Capt Amarinder Singh, Manpreet Badal, Gurpreet Kangar, Rana Gurmeet Singh Sodhi, Raj Kumar Verka, and Sunil Jakhar, a prominent Hindu face, left the party struggling for revival.

Popular Sikh face from Delhi, Manjinder Singh Sirsa, has also joined the saffron brigade.

The Akali Dal enabled the BJP to play a second fiddle role till September 2020 when it snapped over two-decade long ties by pulling out of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) after sharp differences emerged over the three controversial farm laws.

In a just concluded four-cornered contest, AAP's Sushil Kumar Rinku won the Jalandhar Lok Sabha bypoll with a thumping margin of 58,691 votes by defeating its nearest rival, the Congress, which lost its traditional stronghold of 24 years to the party that is portraying a clean image and good work.

AAP secured 3,02,097 votes, while Congress finished with 2,43,450 votes. The Akali-BSP combine was third with 1,58,354 and the BJP came fourth place with 1,34,706 votes.

This poll marks the state AAP unit re-entry to the Lok Sabha. Earlier, Chief Minister Mann was the AAP's first and lone Lok Sabha MP. He resigned from Parliament on being elected as an MLA in the 2022 Punjab Assembly elections. However, his party could not retain the Sangrur seat vacated by him in the previous bypolls.

People rejected SAD in the March 2022 Assembly polls for the second consecutive time. Its legislators in the present Assembly of 117 have shrunk to a mere three in 2022, the lowest ever number, down from 15 seats in 2017.

The BJP, which had won three seats in the 2017 when it had contested in alliance with the Akali Dal, secured two seats this time.

The saffron party is strengthening its roots in the Sikh-dominated state under the leadership of two-time Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, who is seen as a nationalist and widely respected Sikh leader in the politics, and prominent Hindu face Sunil Kumar Jakhar.

Speculations are rife that Capt Amarinder Singh might launch his daughter Jai Inder Kaur, 56, from Patiala, the Lok Sabha constituency currently represented by his wife Preneet Kaur.

One of the several rallies that the BJP is organising in Punjab to celebrate nine years of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre was also held in Patiala where Jai Inder Kaur was "projected" as the prospective candidate and her father was conspicuous absent so that she could get the desired spotlight.

But can "poaching" of the prominent Sikh faces turn the tide in Punjab? BJP insiders say all is not well at this point in time. There is a tug of war of supremacy between the new entrants and the hardcore Hindutva face, who is feeling suffocated and lying low now.

Congress watchers feel Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra has somehow managed to energise the cadres that had been demoralised after the Assembly elections rout in March last year and the mass exodus of their leaders.

Despite the narrative set for the BJP with its brand Modi once again in 2024, political watchers told IANS the Congress is largely wracked by infighting and the oldest state party Akali Dal, which emerged from a religious reformist movement, is falling back on a core "panthic" agenda to regain its political battleground.

Fifteen months into the government in Punjab, Chief Minister Mann and his team are accused of being remote-controlled by the party bosses in Delhi with law and order and drug problems at the lowest ebb.

Critics say AAP is high on propaganda and little on reforms.

The government is yet to fulfil its promise of giving Rs 1,000 per month to the women of Punjab who are above 18 years of age. It is one of the key poll promises announced by AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal in the run-up to the Assembly elections.

Less than a year later, when the AAP will complete over two years of its helm and head for the 2024 parliamentary polls, the party seems again staring at a similar fluidity.

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at [email protected])