A Full Circle

When Manmohan Singh became the first Sikh prime minister of the country in 2004, Sikhs in Punjab rejoiced. By the time the February 2007 assembly election came, he had lost much of his sheen in Punjab with many describing him as a disappointment for the Sikh community because of his failure to give anything concrete to Punjab.It's hard to believe that just two years ago, the good doctor addressed sparse rallies in Amritsar and Patiala, triggering off concerns within the Congress over the advisability of pushing him into the assembly election campaign. 

Cut to January 2009. The Punjab chief minister Prakash Singh Badal of the ruling Akali Dal, pitted in a bitter electoral battle with the Congress, organized simultaneous ‘Akhand Paths’ (recitation of theGuru Granth sahib) at three major gurudwaras of Punjab including the Golden temple for speedy recovery of the PM from a heart surgery. Later when Manmohan Singh visited the Golden Temple after his recovery, he was warmly honoured by the Sikh clergy which is closely aligned with the opposition Akalis. 

Indeed, Badal faced the music on this account after his party, as part of the NDA, voted to oust the prime minister during the trust vote in parliament on July 22nd, 2008. It was not only the Congress but even senior men from his own party like Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa and the late Cooperation minister Capt Kanwaljeet Singh who advised Badal to support Manmohan on the trust vote in the name of Sikhism. They warned him that it will not go down well with their core Sikh vote bank if Manmohan Singh loses his primeministership because of Akali votes. 

The Sikh NRI community who are particularly ardent fans of the prime minister, too, minced no words in showing their anger. But Badal based his calculations on the fact that Singh actually belongs to pre-partition Punjab and does not have a mass political base in the state. The flak that he received from ordinary Punjabis since then, has however, unnerved the Akali party, forcing Badal to make amends by organizing the ‘akhand path’. It is a dilemma which the party is finding hard to resolve as it goes into a no holds barred election battle with the rival Congress in Punjab. When the prevailing sentiment in large swathes of the state, is to see ‘Sikh’, Manmohan Singh as the PM again, the Akalis are finding it hard to punch holes in his persona.

The shoe throwing episode over nomination to Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar has given them some ammunition in recent days. "If Dr Manmohan Singh was not consulted by the Congress high command before giving LokSabha tickets to Tytler and Sajjna Kumar, whose involvement in the massacre of thousands of Sikhs has been proved beyond doubt by judicial commissions, what good is it to the community to have a Sikh as a prime minister of the country," announced Badal, immediately after the PM clarified that he was not in the know about the CBI’s clean chit to the duo. Religious issues and extremist politics having lost their hold over the populace, the electoral discourse in Punjab has come to becantered around ‘Manmohan ne Punjab ke liye kya kiya? [What hasManmohan done for Punjab?]'.

Quite predictably the Congress has based its entire campaign on making Manmohan PM again. Former chief minister Amarinder Singh has asked his campaign managers to highlight how the Akalis opposed the PM during the trust vote while his wife Preneet Kaur, party candidate from Patiala, is appealing to Akali supporters to shun the party line and vote for a Sikh PM. 

Many speculate that this was a good time for the prime minister to wipe off the stain of never winning a popular election. The state Congress wanted him to contest from the Amritsar parliamentary constituency, where sitting MP Navjot Singh Sidhu of the BJP is staring at a falling popularity graph. 

For someone who started out as a Punjabi ‘who wasn’t one’ to the ‘pride of Sikhs’ Manmohan Singh has come a long way in his home state.