VIEWPOINT
AMITABH SHUKLA
Shiromani Akali Dal and the
Congress have a hate-hate relationship. They have never ever been on the same
page in the last several decades and both are known to “invent logic” to
counter each other. This verbal slugfest
sometimes assumes the proportion of outright abuse and a blow below the belt.
You name Congress President Sonia
Gandhi and party General Secretary Rahul Gandhi and some of the Akalis would
start using a language, which at the outset is un-parliamentary. Talk to the
Congress leaders of Punjab and bring the topic of Chief Minister Parkash Singh
Badal and his son and Deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal, you will perhaps get
a similar response. As Punjab practically has a two-party
system with the battlelines clearly drawn between the Akalis and the Congress,
expression of the hate-hate relationship perhaps makes sense to cement their
existing vote-base and attract new ones.
But there is one Congressman whom
the Akalis revere, publicly or in private. They will take his name with respect
and always add adjectives to it. It is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Ironically, while the Congress leaders of the state hardly use the name of
Manmohan Singh either electorally, in election campaign or otherwise, the
Akalis practically project him as “one of them,” and as the “son of soil” who
has made it big. They see him as Sikh who has made the community proud by
becoming the first Prime Minister from the community, someone who is a reference
point in the state when the talk veers on Punjabis who have excelled in various
fields worldwide.
When the Prime Minister was in Ludhiana
for the Golden Jubilee convocation of Punjab
Agricultural University
Badal glorifying the Prime
Minister was not because he was a guest in Punjab and it
is a custom to extol the virtues of a guest. It was simply because the Akalis
know that it is politically correct to do so. The septuagenarian Badal went
ahead and told the gathering how the Prime Minister has always solved the
problems of Punjab and how the people of the state are
indebted to him.
Even as Badal was praising the
Prime Minister, the cadres of both the parties were practically fighting a
pitched battle outside for taking credit for the ambulance service in the
state. While the Congress cadres pasted the pictures of the PM on the ambulance
to take credit of the scheme, the authorities retaliated by slapping cases under
the Defacement Act against the Congress workers. The Akali government in Punjab
had succeeded in taking credit for the scheme by using the picture of Badal on
the ambulances and it paid rich electoral dividends in the last assembly polls
when the ruling party returned to power for the second time in a row.
Ironically, Congress has
practically disowned Manmohan Singh in Punjab and
refused to accept him as a mascot who can win elections for them. In the
February Assembly elections, Singh hardly campaigned in the state and in Amritsar ,
Congress had to take the services of noted singer Gurdas Mann to pull in the
crowd for the rally of the Prime Minister as no one in the city knew that he
was coming.
When an AICC Observer met me when
campaigning for the polls was going, I told him that in a close contest, you
project a mascot and get the Prime Minister to address at least a dozen rallies
in the state. Tell the voters in Punjab how much the
party cares about the Punjabis and there is no better person to do that than
the Prime Minister himself. The Observer, at best, could have written a report
and sent it to his boss. The party might not have given it any weightage nor had
anyone the guts to ask the Prime Minister to get involved in party work.
Perhaps Congress wants to use the
services of Singh administratively as the Prime Minister and not politically. Perhaps
Singh is reluctant to campaign in elections and fight them as he has
assiduously built the image of an intellectual, an economist and a bureaucrat
who is into politics by accident. In any case, Punjab is
the only state where he actually matters to some extent and can get a few votes
for the party provided he specifically asks for it. But even Punjab Congress
was perhaps skeptic about it.
But Akali Dal is not. It invited
Singh for the inauguration of the Khalsa Heritage Memorial at Anandpur Sahib
just before the polls were announced. The Akalis even claimed that they have
got in principle approval of the Prime Minister. It was then that Punjab
Congress President Capt Amarinder Singh intervened and appealed to him not to
visit the state as it would give mileage to the rivals. The Akalis know the
importance of a Manmohan Singh for Punjab , Congerss
perhaps doesn’t.
Badal writes letters to the Prime
Minister on the drop of a hat, on every topic under the sun, the last one was a
few days back when he wanted the intervention of the Prime Minister to take up
the issue of a Hindu temple allegedly demolished in Karachi ,
Pakistan
In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections,
Congress managed to win 8 of the 13 seats in Punjab ,
some of them were undoubtedly due to the fact that Manmohan Singh was the Prime
Minister. Now, when 2014 polls are less than one and a half years away,
Congress has practically nothing to do with him. The party would be living in a
fool’s paradise if it hopes that it would manage to repeat the impressive performance
of last time. Since then, the Akali-BJP alliance have consolidated their
support base and returned to power again while the Congress has practically
disowned Manmohan Singh as a vote-catcher in the state. (10.12.2012)
http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/chandigarh/114584-prime-minister-punjab-and-the-akali-dal.html
http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/114569-prime-ministerpunjab-and-the-akali-dal.html
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