One of the most enduring mysteries of Indian politics in recent times would perhaps be the diminishing clout of the Congress in Punjab at a time when it has a Sikh Prime Minister.

In the last 10 years, ever since Manmohan Singh became the Prime Minister in 2004, Congress has been on a losing spree in the State and has virtually lost all the polls — be it of the Assembly, byelections, municipal polls, Panchayat polls, SGPC elections and what not.  The situation has come to such a pass that Congress MlAs have been deserting their parties, contesting bypolls and becoming MlAs of the SAD again. No one in politics would take such a risk unless there is guarantee of winning.

Of course, in between the losses, in 2009 lok Sabha polls, Congress did reasonably well winning 8 of the 13 lok Sabha seats when Singh was projected as the prime ministerial candidate of the party. In that election, I remember visiting several constituencies in Punjab and finding much to my surprise that the pictures of Manmohan Singh were much bigger than that of the Congress president in the publicity material of the party. Clearly, it paid electoral dividends.

Apart from the 2009 polls, Congress has nothing to show in the State — facing a crisis of sorts with bickering leaders and dejected workers not knowing how to take the Akalis head on. Perhaps it requires an intense political and sociological study to find out why the base of Congress has been continuously slipping in the State despite Manmohan Singh taking over in Delhi whom many say is the tallest living Sikh personality.

Interestingly, all this has unfolded in the last decade or so even when you do not hear a word against the Prime Minister even by his political opponents in Punjab. No one in Shiromani Akali Dal or Punjab unit of BJP speaks anything against Singh even though they go all out in their attack on Congress President Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi.

In fact, Akali Dal treats Singh reverentially and even when you talk to the leaders in private, they have good words for the Prime Minister. Clearly the party delineates Singh and Congress and absolves him of all the follies of the party of which government he heads in New Delhi. Due to the appropriation of Singh by the Akali Dal, at the grass roots level, the Akali Dal projects the Prime Minister as one of its own. No wonder, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal rushes to meet the PM in Delhi whenever the opportunity arises.

Even as the Akali Dal appropriated Manmohan Singh as “one of its own”, Congress gradually started disassociating from its own Prime Minister and now the party has practically disowned him not only in Punjab but also elsewhere in the country. leave aside 2009, in none of the polls thereafter Congress mentioned him in his home State nor did the organisation ever refer to him as a towering leader from the State who made it big nationally.

Even in the 2014 campaign, you hear every issue under the sun — relevant or not — Operation Bluestar, Congress Government’s role in storming the Golden Temple, 1984 anti-Sikh riots, the acts of omission and commission of the Akalis, who did what and who stabbed whom in the back etc. But strangely, Congress has so far desisted from using the name of Manmohan Singh electorally. The party is yet to tell the electorate formally that the first Sikh Prime Minister of the country was from the party and that too for 10 years.

I still cannot comprehend why Congress has completely detached itself with Manmohan Singh in Punjab even though he has a groundswell of support as one Sikh who has made it big, really big. If Congress disassociates with the legacy of Singh in the rest of the country, and this is what the party under Rahul Gandhi is doing, it is understandable. For a decade, he presided over an indecisive Government incapable of taking an initiative, a regime of high ticket scams and leaves nothing as a lasting legacy for the people of the country.

But still, if Singh contests from one of the parliamentary seats in Punjab, I am sure he would win hands down. The Akali Dal would have preferred not to put a candidate and the cascading effect of Singh taking on the electoral battlefield would have been felt not only in Punjab but other northern States as well. When reluctant Congress leaders like Capt Amarinder Singh, Ambika Soni, Partap Singh Bajwa and Sunil Jakhar could be asked to contest, surely Singh could have volunteered to steer the boat when the sea is rough in his own State. Though he has said he would not be the PM again, surely he could have become a lok Sabha MP and motivate the workers of the party by contesting the last election of his life.

The economist Prime Minister hardly campaigned for his party either in the 2007 Assembly polls or the 2012 polls. His party lost both. The PM does not interact with mediapersons but one pertinent question would be why he has lost all interest in his home State and what according to him would be one thing for which he should be remembered. I am sure he would smile benignly at these questions and prefer not to answer them.

But surely there are answers to these questions. I think, Singh has become a prisoner of his own image, an image which he cultivated assiduously over a quarter of a century and now cannot get out of it. This was the image of an intellectual, an economist and a bureaucrat who is into politics by accident and does not have high esteem about his colleagues and fellow political travellers.

The image was also of an obedient bureaucrat, the perennial “Yes Minister” who forgot that he himself was the Minister as years of saying yes to political bosses was too ingrained in his psyché. Perhaps he considered it below his stature to involve with regional politics of Punjab and interact with Congress leaders of the State as he thought that his image in Washington and london would be blurred if he got electorally involved.

As far as the lasting legacy of the outgoing Prime Minister is concerned, perhaps he will count the Indo-US nuclear deal, for which he staked his Government in UPA I. But did anyone hear about the nuclear deal in the run-up to the campaign of 2014IJ The issue has been forgotten simply because it is a non-issue and unlikely to fetch even 100 votes all over the country. Then there were the so-called “Rights”— to Information, 100 days of employment, food etc. But remember, Rahul Gandhi and the Congress under him has appropriated this and they do not give even an iota of credit to Singh.

So what should the people consider as the legacy of the Prime MinisterIJ Should they consider it as a wasted tenure of 10 years where things moved on their own pace and the bureaucracy ran the country the way it feltIJ I suspect, there will be a strong resonance with the belief that the institutional machinery ran the Government for 10 years and Singh was a symbolic head, sitting at 7 Race Course Road, the official residence of the Prime Minister of India.

                ashukla.mail@gmail.com