Voting begins

Sukhbir Singh Badal to ensure a “hat trick”, their return to power for a third term seems unlikely.

Even here in Lambi, which Chief Minister Badal has nurtured over so many years, Amarinder is putting up a tough fight, and AAP’S Jarnail Singh has made inroads.

Many homes in the village are flying Congress flags. “The Akalis have destroyed my son, he is a drug addict. He will vote for Akali. But many of us women in Lambi have decided to vote for Congress,” said Sharmeet Kaur.

Her daughter-in-law is a qualified teacher, but did not get a government job. “We had to start a tuition centre at home so she wouldn’t waste her qualification,” said Sharmeet.

Theeasyavailabilityofnarcoticdrugs,widespread addiction and unemployment have been the big issues this election. Corruption, the government’s failure to solve the incidents ofdesecrationofthegurugranthsahib,aperceived breakdown of law and order, agrarian distress,andthe“badalisation”ofakalidalhave also created an anti-incumbent sentiment.

Akali insiders concede they are now fighting to avoid third place as the call for “badlav (change)” has dominated the election. The big question is which of the two other parties, Congress or AAP, would be chosen as the vehicle of this change.

The bomb explosion that killed six people atacongressrallyinmaurontuesday,plusthe last-minutesurprisefromsad-bjpintheform of support from the Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmit Singh Ram Rahim, have made this question more fraught.

Voters are playing their cards close to the chest, indicating their preferences in guarded language. One refrain is: “Akalis and Congress candidates are both strong, and now there’s a thirdpartyaswell,solet’sseewhathappensin thevotingbooth.”congressandaapareclaiming these “silent voters” as their own.

In a part of Lambi where the saffron Akali flag is flying from every house, residents say they are SAD voters. “We wouldn’t have got so manyfacilitieshaditnotbeenforbadalsahab,” said an old man, pointing to the concrete road, solar lights and the bench painted in the Akali yellow-and-blue that he was sitting on.

But in a surprising afterthought, he adds that AAP’S “bechara” Jarnail Singh would do the same if he was elected.

It is also clear that the “outsider” tag has failed to stick on AAP. Both Congress and SAD asked voters not to hand over Punjab to a “Haryanvi”,theirdescriptionforaapconvenor Arvind Kejriwal. But despite naming no Sikh chief ministerial candidate, the party has risen to become a serious contender.

Among the young (approximately 60 per cent of the electorate is between 18 to 39 years old) and older Sikhs who say they can never vote for Congress because of 1984, among the economically weak including Dalits, and amongruralvoters,aap’spromiseofajustand egalitariansocietyhascarriedmuchresonance.

It is strongest in the 69-seat under-developedmalwaregion,whichincludes11districts stretching from Ludhiana to Bathinda to Muktsar.here,thepartyisgivingitself60seats. Eventhecongress’sback-of-the-envelopecalculations project 25 seats for AAP, with tough fights in many others.

Thecongresshasacommittedvotebankin Doaba,whichhasalargeshareofthestate’s32 percentdalitvotes,andthepartyhopestopull in a majority of the 23 seats here. But AAP has made massive inroads here, too.

In Phagwara, a reserved constituency, where sitting MLA Som Parkash is from BJP, and the Congress candidate Joginder Singh Mannisastrongcontender,youngstersstandingoutsideasawmillsaythevotewasdivided between the three parties. But demonetisation had killed the BJP’S chances, they say, and “a new party should be given a chance”.

The Congress is strongest in the 25 seatmajha region, the centre of which is Amritsar. Theyhopetomakeatleast19seatsinthisregion.

Inthelast48hours,congressinsidershave veered between predictions of a hung assembly and scraping past the halfway mark, the mood swinging with the projections.

AAP has appeared more self-assured though the charge levelled by Congress and Akalis that it has courted ex-militants, in a bid to woo the panthic vote, has got some traction after the Maur blast. AAP’S “radical hug”, including an overnight stay by Kejriwal at the home of a former KCF militant, will cost it dearly, hopes Congress. It is also banking on AAP’S Hindu supporters, whose memories of Punjab militancy are fresh, to turn their back on the party.

The jury is still out on how Dera Sacha Sauda’s support to SAD-BJP will go down with voters,andwhoitwillhurtmore,thecongress or AAP. Yet, conversations with voters showed that this time, the yearning for “badlav” may trump affiliation to the dera.