Father-son duo does it for Punjab

PUNJAB RESULTS-2012

Amitabh Shukla / Chandigarh

After the historic win of the SAD-BJP alliance in Punjab, focus has shifted to the father and son duo of Parkash Singh Badal and Sukhbir Badal who made the seemingly impossible task a reality.

While the senior Badal was the calming influence on the Akali leaders and the cadres, Sukhbir used innovative means to woo the voters, shunned the decades old panthic agenda of the party and made good governance and development the only issue for the polls. Both successfully complimented each other in the run up to the polls.

The Akalis hardly raised old issues of discrimination by the Centre, transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab or more share in the river waters. It never referred to the contentious Anandpur Sahib resolution which talked about greater autonomy to the state. Under Sukhbir, they bid adieu to the politics of dharam yudh and morchas, the hallmark of the Akalis not long ago

While Congress had two dozen rebels, the Akalis managed to reduce the number of their rebels to less than half a dozen. Initially, there were around 20 aspirants who had declared to fight the polls as independents. Most of them were under the impression that tickets were denied to them due to Sukhbir. The senior Badal immediately jumped to the rescue of the party and personally went to the houses of the rebels to convince them. Bowled over by the humility of the senior Badal paying them a personal visit, most of the rebels withdrew from the fray, helping the cause of the party.

The senior Badal, a veteran of many a battle, never spoke against his nephew Manpreet Badal, who broke away from SAD and formed PPP. Manpreet was the “biggest rebel” of SAD but failed to cut ice with the voters and it is understood that he dented Congress voters in the urban areas more than the core Akali voters in the rural areas.

Realising that the last year was the most crucial as the memory of the voters is short, a slew of schemes were conceptualised and executed from March 2011 onwards – all meant to simplify governance, make the benefits of the state reach the common people. More so, the Akalis ensured that it registered with the people of the state.

Right to Service was brought in at the behest of Sukhbir so that the people get the services in a time bound manner. SAD-BJP saw that the move had tremendously helped NDA come to power in Bihar and the BJP in Madhya Pradesh. The party went hammers and tongue to publicise this in the run-up to the polls. Another move which Punjab aped from Bihar was the distribution of cycles to the girls studying in high school. Almost every village now had girls riding cycles to school and they had practically become the brand ambassadors of the state government as these cycles had the photos of the CM (Badal) on them.

Though the state government did not bring in police reforms to free it of political influence, it nevertheless opened neighbourhood Saanjh Kendras to de-stigmatize visiting police stations. It was a much needed change as a lot of people avoided going to police stations to lodge routine complaints.

Sukhbir also brought the Kabaddi World Cup to Punjab and all the cities in the state hosted Kabaddi matches with huge audience to watch the matches. It provided perfect platform for SAD to showcase the state and impress the people with the achievements of the state government.

The state may be debt-stressed, but opened its purse for the state government employees, teachers, and the lower level policemen. This may not be a prudent financial move but helped the employees see the government sympathetically when its term was coming to an end.

Badal, four-time chief minister and now sure to get a fifth term, did bring in Panthic agenda but it was more of a historic value than narrow religious issue. The Virasat-e-Khalsa complex at Sri Anandpur Sahib, Chhota Ghalughara Martyrs’ Memorial at Kahnuwan Chamb (Gurdaspur), Wadda Ghalughara Martyrs’ Memorial at Kup Rohira (Sangrur) and Baba Banda Singh Bahadur War Memorial at
Chaparchiri (SAS Nagar) were opened. This endeared SAD to the core vote bank of the party – the Jat Sikhs and the farmers.

No wonder, the Akali Dal bucked anti incumbency, increasing its seats to 56 from 49 in the 2007 polls. The script written by SAD won the approval of the voters, second time in a row. (March 7, 2012)

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