2024-06-05 16:15:03
Setting an ambitious target in the Lok Sabha elections of bagging 13 seats out of 13 in Punjab, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann had called the polls a “reality check” for his two-year-old government.
Going by the poll outcome, the people of the state seem to have shown their disappointment with the AAP, which is getting just three out of 13 parliamentary seats. The AAP’s arch rival in the state, the Congress, is set to bag seven seats.
The AAP had stormed to power by sweeping the state in the 2022 Assembly polls, winning 92 seats out of 117.
Except for Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer (Sangrur), all the other four sitting cabinet ministers who were in the fray failed to win their seats, even though Balbir Singh (Patiala) and Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal (Amritsar) came second in the multi-cornered contests. As per initial estimates, the party’s vote share has fallen to 26% from 42% in 2022.
The poll results are bound to be a dampener for the AAP that was banking heavily on the successful rollout of its free power scheme (300 units a month) besides a host of other welfare programmes – such as the free Aam Aadmi mohalla clinics, revamp of canals, and the establishment of new schools – for its Lok Sabha poll bid in the state.
One of the prime reasons for the party’s failure to put up a good show is perceived anti-incumbency against most of its MLAs, who were said to be “inaccessible”.
A large section of voters expected the 80-plus first-time AAP legislators to be seen in their constituencies. But people across the Malwa, Majha and Doaba regions complained that once elected, most legislators never returned to even thank them, leave alone redress their grievances. “Aam Aadmi has turned into Khaas (entitled)’, was their common refrain across the state.
The AAP did well in seats like Sangrur, CM Mann’s home turf, where its candidate Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer, a minister, won handsomely because some of the party MLAs from the belt, like Aman Arora and minister Harpal Singh Cheema, have been nursing their constituencies. The CM’s wife Gurpreet Kaur also campaigned extensively in his Dhuri Assembly segment that also falls in the Sangrur parliamentary seat.
The AAP also faltered because it “over-promised and under-delivered”, thus failing to meet the high expectations of people who sought a drastic “badlav” (change) on the ground, not merely in governance but also in civic amenities, jobs and eradication of drugs.
The promises unfulfilled so far, such as the monthly stipend of Rs 1,000 to women, led to the Opposition attacking the AAP over its alleged “lies”. Be it the Congress, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) or the BJP, their leaders accused the AAP of being a “jhooth di pand (a sack of lies)”, which caught public imagination.
The AAP also failed to deliver on its promise to ensure the minimum support price (MSP) on crops other than wheat and paddy.
The feeling of insecurity among the trading community in the Malwa belt after some incidents of extortion and a daylight killing led to many of them switching their allegiance from the AAP to the Congress and the BJP.
There was also “resentment” in a section of people living in the countryside over the state government’s “over-reaction” in the Waris Punjab De chief Amritpal Singh case and the lack of action in the case of Pritpal Singh – the farmer who was allegedly picked up from among a group of protesting farmers by the Haryana police from the Khanauri border on February 24 and severely thrashed.
In the Pritpal Singh case, the farmers’ leaders like Sarvan Singh Pandher of the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha often complained about how the Mann government had succumbed to pressure from the Centre, holding that it failed to register a case against Haryana’s then CM Manohar Lal Khattar and home minister Anil Vij. Even though the Mann government filed a zero FIR in the case and pointed out how it was legally untenable to do anything more, many youths in Punjab took it as a sign of weakness.
However, the AAP could take heart from the point that five of its candidates came second in the current polls. CM Mann, the party’s chief campaigner, had told The Indian Express: “We have three more years to go, we will continue to learn and work for the people.”
