The Aam Aadmi Party’s resurfacing in Delhi is bound to cause ripples in Punjab politics. Its resurrection has left the political parties in the State not only jittery, but also mulling a change in their political strategy.
AAP was a force to reckon with since it bagged four seats in the parliamentary polls held about nine months back. But its victory in Delhi, just about two years before the Assembly elections in Punjab, is likely to see a change in the political environment with possibility of not just the greenhorns, but even seasoned politicians, making a beeline for donning the characteristic AAP’s boat-cap.
It just might affect any possible plan of the BJP of going solo in the impending Assembly elections, scheduled to be held sometime in 2017.
The party has already made clear its intentions of concentrating only on Punjab after Delhi. Backing out from contesting the local elections, the party has declared that it would, as of now, focus on its ‘Mission 2017’ in the State.
After capturing Delhi, AAP’s eyes are now firmly fixed on Punjab where the major political parties are in disarray. While the gulf between the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP combine is widening with each passing day, the Congress party is marred by infighting.
With Punjab as its destination-next, AAP believed that the huge anti-incumbency against the SAD-BJP combine coupled with the charges of corruption and the drug issue would be of its assistance.
On the other hand, the Congress party has even failed to play an active role as main opposition party with its senior leadership washing their dirty linen in public over leadership issue. Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president Partap Singh Bajwa and former chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh are in open war of words against each other to grab the state party leadership.
AAP has already turned the Punjab political battle a triangular contest by pilfering 24 percent vote share of major political parties in the lok Sabha elections. A sharp decline in the vote share of Congress from around 42 per cent in 2009 lok Sabha polls to 33 per cent, and that of SAD-BJP combine to 35 per cent from previous figure of approximately 40 per cent was noticed.
Political analysts had believed that AAP managed to take advantage of anti-incumbency factors working against both the main political parties of the State — SAD-BJP combine and the Congress in 2014 polls.
They had maintained that the electors, who exercised their franchise in favour of the AAP, neither wanted to vote for the BJP nor the Congress in the State, to which AAP emerged out to be the credible alternative.
“Party’s success in Delhi is sure to have a great impact in Punjab. At the time when Modi wave was so strong that it swept the Congress party across the nation, we stopped it in Punjab by bagging four seats,” a senior AAP leader and party’s State spokesperson Prof Manjit Singh told The Pioneer.
He said that the people want to go for "better alternatives" whenever they get one. “Delhi results will have dampening effect on Congress, their morale would become low as they are already facing infighting. People will not like Akali Dal to continue. Also BJP can’t part ways with SAD and project that they are ‘holier than thou’. They shared power for all these years,” he said.
Agreeing, the Congress legislative Party (ClP) leader Sunil Kumar Jakhar said that AAP’s landslide victory would have great impact not only in Punjab but on the entire political scene, and all parties should take these results as “a wake up call”.
“People have lost patience. They want a people’s leader with clean and honest image who can deliver and don’t make fake promises…Congress has learned its lesson and I think its time for us to reorganize ourselves,” said Jakhar.
He said that more than Congress, “I think it’s a big lesson for the Akali Dal who is selling fake dreams to the people which would not go a long way now”. On the other hand, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal asserted that AAP’s victory in Delhi assembly polls “would not impact the prospects of Punjab politics in anyway”.
“AAP’s victory is confined only to the national capital and subsequently, these political developments would not have impending repercussions on the Punjab politics,” he said while talking to the media persons in ludhiana.
Catapulted itself into the forefront in mid-2014 in Punjab by winning four lok Sabha seats out of 13 while facing a complete wipe-out in all other States, the party was pushed back into the background much before the year end.
The party had failed to keep up the momentum it gained in the state by startling the political bigwigs in general elections, including former Union Minister Preneet Kaur. AAP’s hopes to emerge as viable political option in Punjab were dashed to the ground after the State’s electorate gave a clear-cut mandate against it in two by-elections, held in August 2014, just three months after.
Journey from the Congress party to SAD started long back, but speculation was rife that some of the discontented politicians were preferring the BJP as destination with its strong emergence nationwide and in the neighbouring State of Haryana. But with the change in AAP’s fortunes in Delhi, it is believed that some of them will now try to hop the party’s political bandwagon.
Moreover, with the BJP only managing to bag just three seats in 70-member Delhi Assembly, the possibility of saffron party parting ways with its ally in Punjab, SAD, and contest ensuing 2017 Assembly polls alone may alter, forcing it to think twice before taking such a decision. However, with assembly polls still two years away, no one knows which way the political wind blows in the State.