CAPTAIN MARCHES ON
THE PUNJAB CHIEF MINISTER HAS HIT THE GROUND RUNNING WITH SOME BIG-TICKET REFORMS. BUT HE STILL HAS A DEBT MOUNTAIN TO CLIMB
Iwill be satisfied when I have the means to knock off the entire debt burden confronting my farmers,” he says, evidently reluctant to trumpet the waiver of Rs 9,500 crore in unpaid crop loans of some 1 million small and marginal farmers as a ‘big-ticket’ achievement. But in his second avatar as Punjab chief minister, Captain Amarinder Singh is clearly a more ‘worldly wise’ politician, for he quietly informs you later that the waiver proposes “double the relief announced by Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra” (both, incidentally, ruled by the BJP).
Amarinder has never had it so good. The Congress swept to power this March with an unexpected 78 out of the 117 seats in the state assembly. And the party high command in Delhi, acutely aware that it was he who ‘delivered’ them Punjab in the face of a surging Aam Aadmi Party, has refrained from any significant interference.
In capital Chandigarh too, with most party foes like former chief minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal and veterans like Shamsher Dullo and Ashwani Sekhri having lost at the hustings or simply rendered irrelevant in state politics, he’s virtually without any challenge. Even Pratap Singh Bajwa, Amarinder’s most bitter critic and the former state Congress chief, was moved to the Rajya Sabha well ahead of the February 4 polls.
Close to four months into his new government, the difference is telling. “The last time, it took me nearly two years to get a hang of things, how things work in the state government,” Amarinder candidly confesses. This time, he says, “we have hit the ground running”.
The very first meeting of the new council of ministers on March 18 cleared as many as 144 proposals, including the setting up of a special task force (STF) to combat the drug menace in the state. Equally key was the dismantling of the highly controversial ‘halqa (constituency) in-charge’ system put in place by the previous SAD-BJP coalition, whereby ruling party MLAs or party-appointed functionaries ruled the roost—from police stations to the allotment of tube well connections. But perhaps the best received decision was the summary order banning the use of lal battis (red beacons) on all official and private vehicles with the exception of ambulances and emergency service transport. The July 5 move, promptly emulated by the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, was extended to ban the use of hooters and sirens by politicians and bureaucrats as well.
Under Amarinder’s watch, the Punjab government has looked keen to usher in muchneeded reforms alongside a measure of downsizing the state administration. Calling for an immediate review of the ‘gunman culture’ that has plagued Punjab since the troubled times of the Khalistan movement in the 1980s and early ’90s, he set the ball rolling by culling over half of the security detail assigned to himself. “Did you know they (the state police) had given an entire battalion for my protection!” says Amarinder who has ordered nearly 500 security personnel back to law and order duties in the understaffed police districts.
“We are already acting on poll promises that involve administrative and governance changes. Things that need a financial component are in the pipeline. That will take some time,” Amarinder told india today at the newly re-designated chief ministerial residencecum-office complex in Chandigarh.
Coming up with the cash will be a huge challenge. Against the state debt of Rs 1.35 lakh crore they had estimated before the polls, Amarinder and his colleagues in the new government are actually faced with the daunting