The civic body elections in Punjab are expected to tell whether the winds of resentment blowing after the enactment of the contentions farm laws by the Central Government will have a sway over the impending assembly elections in the State after about a year.
The February 14 elections to a total of 2,302 wards in eight Municipal Corporations and 109 Municipal Councils and Nagar Panchayats of the State, amidst the intense farmers’ agitation, is set to pose a major challenge for the state’s major political parties which are considering it as nothing less than a semi-final before the final showdown.
It would be for the first time in the recallable history that all the political parties would contest the elections, at the council and panchayat levels, on the party symbols.
Openly lending their weight to the farmers’ agitation against the BJP-led Centre’s agricultural legislations, winning the elections would not be a cakewalk for anyone — be it the ruling Congress, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).
In fact, for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) it would be nothing less than walking on a tight rope to save its identity in the state as the elections are considered to be the first reflection of the people’s anger against the BJP over the new farm laws.
BJP: DOUBLE WHAMMY
In a double whammy, BJP is not only facing massive protests across the State over the farm laws, but it is also struggling hard to contest the elections without the support of SAD — which had snapped age-old ties with the saffron party over the issue of farm laws. What is more! The party leaders were not only facing protests by the farmers but strong opposition by the common man also.
In fact, several BJP candidates have decided to contest the elections as ‘independents’ fearing a backlash as the farmers’ ongoing agitation is not only limited to the rural pockets, but has become a mass movement with urbanites — known to be BJP’s stronghold — also coming out in full support of the agitating farmers.
As per the figures released by the State Election Commission, total 15,305 candidates filed their papers of which 9,222 were left in the fray after final scrutiny.
The BJP could not field the candidates for 1,632 seats — 71 percent of the total seats — which means that it has fielded just 670 candidates. A senior BJP leader, who did not wish to be named, told The Pioneer that there were many instances where the candidates requested us to contest the polls without BJP election symbol (lotus), and going by the prevailing resentment against the party, we left it upon them to decide.
“A wrong perception is being created that BJP could not find the candidates without SAD. But, in reality, we have good candidates…It’s only the current situation because of which we have these figures,” said the leader.
This would be for the first time after decades that BJP would be going for polls alone, sans Akali Dal.
As per the alliance, the SAD enjoys support in the state’s rural areas, while the BJP primarily takes care of the urban voters, especially the traders and industrialists. In fact, in 2015, the then ruling SAD-BJP combine had swept the civic polls with the saffron party performing better than its senior ally. If that was not enough, the saffron brigade has not been able to campaign for its candidates.
Courtesy: “pakka morchas” outside the residences of over two dozen BJP leaders coupled with strong resistance by the people towards the party candidates.” Yes, we are facing problems in campaigning as our meetings were disrupted by the protesting farmers whenever they get to know. We are primarily sticking to door-to-door campaigning but then also the people question us why we are representing BJP which is so much against the farmers,” said a BJP candidate from Bathinda.
Punjab BJP chief Ashwani Sharma said that the party is making an all-out effort to break this misconception that these farm laws are against the farmers. “We are trying to reach out to people, make them aware, meeting farmers as these laws are for their benefit and they should not be misguided by the opposition parties,” he added.
CONGRESS: POPULARITY TEST
The elections would be a popularity test for the ruling Congress with the voters set to present the party’s report card for its four-year performance. Even though the Congress is backing the agitating farmers and has also passed its own legislations to negate the Centre’s farm laws, the opposition is taking on the ruling party for its failure to fulfill its poll promises.
On the other hand, the Congress is banking on several decisions ad steps it has taken during its four-year-tenure, mainly for giving 50 per cent reservation to the women in civic bodies, ownership rights to the slum dwellers, mobile phones to the students, generating jobs for the state’s youth, smooth procurement, enhancing compensation under Aashirwaad, investment in industrial sector, setting up of smart schools, besides the works regarding water supply, sanitation, roads, among others. The Congress party claims that it has carried out the overall development of all areas, irrespective of the party MLAs to which they belong, by providing safe drinking water, proper roads, and sewage, which are the issues that in reality affect the people in general, and matters in the civic polls. Going by the general trend of the ruling party winning the local body polls, the Congress is hopeful of sweeping the elections. Already, several Congress candidates have been elected unopposed at several seats.
SAD: FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL
Akali Dal is also facing the ire of the people who consider it to be a party for paving way for bringing the contentions acts “against the farmers”.
SAD chief Sukhbir Badal and former Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal have all along been projecting themselves to sacrifice the decades-old alliance and also the Union Cabinet berth to stand with the farmers — the only NDA partners to oppose the farm laws.
In fact, SAD patron and five-time Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had also declared to return his Padma Vibhushan in protest.
SAD has all along been maintaining that the party had always stood with the farmers and would continue to do. The party also denied all allegations that the decisions were taken under compulsions and to save their already dented image in Punjab.
The state’s only regional party believed that the people would support them in the ensuing polls considering the Congress’ anarchy and non-performance, with AAP nowhere in the picture.
AAP: PROJECTING DELHI MODEL
Anticipating to emerge as a major political force at the municipal corporation level in the state ahead of the 2022 elections, AAP is campaigning with full strength.
Besides the state leaders, including comedian-turned-politician Bhagwant Mann and legislators, its leaders from Delhi are also electioneering in the state — projecting Arvind Kejriwal led Delhi Government’s development model.
All the party candidates, primarily youngsters and rising amongst the common man, are promising the people the corruption-free municipalities, better schools, clean and developed areas just like the party government working in the national capital.
This is for the first time that AAP has fielded candidates for local bodies across Punjab, and it was hoping that people would give the party’s candidates an opportunity after all the traditional parties had extremely disappointed the people of the state. “People have lost faith in traditional parties and have trust only in AAP, which can live up to the expectations of the people of Punjab…The people would oust SAD, BJP, and Congress in the coming elections and form the AAP Government which would implement the model of Arvind Kejriwal Government in Delhi in Punjab,” said party’s MLA in Delhi and state’s co-in-charge Raghav Chadha while campaigning for party candidates.