The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Note ban doesn’t pay as a poll issue in Punjab
Voters hit hard but AAP and Cong feel BJP has little presence anyway, SAD happy to keep quiet about demonetisation
GURJANT SINGH, 25, a shopkeeper in Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal’s Badal village, arrives at the Central Bank of India branch there on a recent morning, looks at a notice pasted on the gates that says “Cash khatam hai ji”, and returns to his shop.
“Whenever you need money, it is not available. I need to stock up my shop but I have no option but to wait for tomorrow. Notebandi (demonetisation) has made me poorer,” he says, wondering that cash can be unavailable even in the chief minister’s village.
Voters across the state are complaining against the Centre’s decision to demonetise high-value notes. From potato farmers to football makers, the textile and cycle manufacturing hub of Ludhiana to shopkeepers, farmers, and workers in the informal sectors in the cities and farmhands, demonetisation has touched everyone’s life in Punjab.
Neither the Congress nor AAP, however, has focused on demonetisation in their campaigns. The Shiromani Akali Dal, the ruling BJP’S ally, has kept quiet about it. Even BJP candidates have not played on it as an ‘achievement’ of the NDA government.
The reason, according to a Punjab AAP leader: “It is the prime minister and the BJP that people criticise for demonestisation. Narendra Modi has virtually no presence in Punjab. Here the chatter is all about Badals and the Congress. Why should we waste energy and time fussing about it?”
AAP has made it a huge issue at the national level. The leader said, “In Goa, we are all out against Modi and his demonetisation. But not here.”
A Congress leader too said political priorities are different in Punjab. His reason for not making demonetisation an issue, however, is different from what the AAP leader cited. “We are hitting out at AAP and its national convener Arvind Kejriwal. The BJP does not have much of a stake in Punjab. In constituencies where our nominees are taking on BJP candidates, they raise it locally,” he said.
As for SAD, its leaders had been hoping that the Congress and AAP would not make big of the issue, as that would have added another front on which they would have had to battle.
One Akali leader said that in the beginning the cash scarcity situation was so bad that the SAD leadership thought this would become the main election issue, and that its candidates would be pelted with shoes. Though that did not happen, SAD still believes the decision has hurt the ruling alliance’s prospects.
“For us, it is like Tom paying for Jerry’s wrongdoing,” said the Akali leader, based in Malwa. “The BJP should get the flak but people blame us for demonetisation. We have a way of shrugging it off subtly by blaming our coalition partner but it is an issue. I wish they had gone ahead with demonetisation after the Punjab elections.”
The larger focus on other issues such as drugs and corruption too have contributed to the absence of demonetisation from the campaign.
The BJP, however, has had to face some tough questions. As per its seat-sharing arrangement with SAD, the party is contesting 23 out of the 117 seats.
“At most of the meetings I have attended, people have protested against the note ban,” said a BJP leader in Fazilka.
This BJP leader wasn’t confident of the party winning many of its 23 seats, even after Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmit Ram Rahim Singh’s edict to his followers to vote for the ruling alliance.
“That is like the support of a straw to a drowning man,” said the BJP leader. “The number one reason why we are doing so badly is demonestisation. The second reason is anti-incumbency against SAD-BJP. Also we have a weak organisational structure in the state.”
He said this had been conveyed to the top BJP leadership in Delhi.
Sensing the people’s pulse, Local Bodies Minister Anil Joshi sought forgiveness from his electorate stating he should not be punished for demonetisation.
While the situation is supposed to have eased and banks have removed withdrawal limits, ATMS are still not stocked up. Many ATMS in rural areas are closed. And it has hit people in different ways. Gurdeep Kaur, 55, a Dalit voter in Daula village near Gidderbaha, who picks cotton for a living, said: “I get Rs 200 for picking cotton everyday. The landowner paid me Rs 200 for doing the labour for two days stating he does not have a change. I don’t have money to buy my food.”
Another villager, Makhan Singh, a rickshaw-puller, said, “The poor have been affected the most. People tell us they do not have money. Where do we go?”
Pardeep Kumar, who owns a grocery store owner in the main market in Gidderbaha, said, “You cannot imagine how badly my sales were hit. I did not have the money to buy goods. Those selling clothes, utensils and other such items were the worst hit. People have not bought any new clothes. It is big slowdown.”
Ved Pal from Fatehgarh Sahib said he was standing in queues outside banks to withdraw. “Our employers gave us our wages in old notes. Now, withdrawing the money is still a hassle. We are losing two mandays a week standing in queues. It hits the poor man.”