Power Cut

Barely a day after polling for all 13 constituencies of Punjab was over, the days of long power cuts returned to large swathes of the state. It was not entirely unexpected. Everyone knew that the AkaliDal-BJP government’s largesse of providing uninterrupted electricity for the last twomonths was only a fleeting poll sop. In the eventuality, it did not work much for the ruling combine as the people are clearly fed up of its insincere approach to governance. 

Down from 11 in 2004, to just 5 now, a much chastened Sukhbir Badal, deputy chief minister and president of the Akali Dal, reacted by saying that the next two years of his government will be devoted to providing accelerated development and fulfilling the party’s election promises. Didn’t we hear him say that two years agoas well? A huge face saver for the Akali Dal though, is his wife Harsimrat Kaur’s victory over Raninder Singh, son of former chief minister Amarinder Singhof the Congress from Bhatinda with a convincing margin.

It's been just two years since the Badal clan came to power in Punjab and people have alreadysignalled their disappointment. The common perception is that what goes by the name of the Akali-BJP government inPunjab is actually a government of the Badal clan. With as many as four family members in the cabinet,with both father and son holding the two top jobs, it is Badal Inc which runs Punjab today, almost like a business venture. The anti-Badal sentiment though has much to do with Sukhbir Badal’s despotic style of functioning. 

The unprecedented violence that he unleashed during Panchyat and local bodies elections a year ago have left even hard core Akali supporters horrified. Add to it a corrupt and unresponsive administration and fiscal imprudence which has left very little money for any kind of development initiatives. The monumental misgovernance in Punjab today is also an embarrassment for alliance partner BJP which has been repeatedly humiliated by theBadals in the last few months. If all this has been Sukhbir Badal’s undoing, chief minister Prakash Singh Badal, a politician in the old mould, hasalso failed to give any direction either to his son or the government. 

Against the Congress’s spectacular victory across the country, Punjab’s tally of 8 out of 13 seats, which is a significant improvement over its previous tally of 2, has left Punjab Congressmen a little disappointed. This is the state where PM, Manmohan Singh’s Sikh identity was expected to do much for the Congress. The Congress’ entire campaign was centred around the prime minister being the ‘pride of Punjab’ and the party was hoping for a complete rout of the Akali Dal-BJP combine. 

Ironically, the Congress lost all the three constituencies of Amritsar, Khadoor Sahib and Ferozepur where Manmohan Singh addressed well attended rallies. Campaign manager Amarinder Singh who was brought in from the cold to personally lead the assault on the ruling combine managed to get two tickets for his family, his wife Preneet Kaur (re-elected from Patiala) and son Raninder Singh who has lost his maiden election from Bhatinda. 

Amarinder Singh’s press conference on Saturday, which was planned as a victorious father and son photo op for the media turned into a flop show when the results showed Raninder’s defeat.Nevertheless, Amarinder has much to be satisfied about. He turned around a demoralized and bickering partycadre, took on the ‘panthic’ agenda of the Akalis and silenced his detractors within the state Congress with his effective election campaign. 

But the Sirsa based Dera sacha Sauda, which was credited with the Congress’s victory in the Malwa belt in the 2007 assembly elections surprisingly did not deliver this time around. Even if Amarinder Singh’s boast that Akali legislators will desert the Badal government after the elections does not come true, the Congress’s performance cements his place among the stalwarts of Punjab politics.