The Punjab exception

State has been an outlier to national trends. Will BJP be able to change that?

OVER THE LAST decade, India’s polity has been witness to a new phase in the party system with the BJP as the system-defining party. The dominant party has several advantages — a mass leader at the helm and a robust organisation in addition to vast resources have allowed it to turn parliamentary elections more “presidential”. It has also succeeded in creating a “national constituency” phenomenon. With the BJP ruling in 16 states either on its own or in a coalition, the electoral arena of India looks quite flat, excluding perhaps the South.

In this picture, Punjab stands out for several reasons. First, the BJP has not made any headway in the elections held in Punjab over the last decade, both in terms of seats and vote share. Second, while a sizeable number of voters in the last two parliamentary elections in the rest of India have reported voting for the BJP primarily due to the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, voters in Punjab, even the BJP supporters, have not reported being swayed by the “Modi factor”. Third, Punjab is the only state where the AAP has won any Lok Sabha seat to date. As early as in the 2014 elections, the then two-year-old party won four out of 13 seats and went on to become the main opposition party in the 2017 elections.

Fourth, at a time when religious fervour seems to be on the ascendance and sweeping North, Central and Western India after the inauguration of Lord Ram temple, Punjab seems immune. This is despite a size able Hindu population.there does not appear to be a revival of radicalism in the Sikh community in response to the push for Hindu major it arianism—a testamentto the historical hindu- sikh unity. fifth, in the “Modi era”, most of the “regionally located” parties like the Samajwadi Party have suffered electorally. Only “regionalist parties” like the DMK, which take up region-specific political, cultural and economic agendas, have done reasonably well. They are likely to survive the BJP juggernaut in the forthcoming election as well. Here, again, Punjabi san exception. the aka lid al, anethn o-religious party that’s over a century old, seems to be in perpetual decline. Notably, this is not because of the BJP’S ascendance as has been the case in other states but due to its own tactical mistakes and organisational/leadership issues.

Sixth, at a time when parties have been trying to gain electoral dividends by appointing chief ministers from the numerically strong middle and “lower” castes and ministers from numerically smaller castes, the Congress’s last-ditch attempt to fight anti-incumbency by appointing a Dalit chief minister failed miserably in the 2022 assembly elections. This indicated that despite having one-third of its population belonging to the Dalit community, the state is not yet ready for “social engineering”. The social basis of political power has not shifted unlike in the states witnessing “silent revolutions”.

Seventh, as the state continues to remain under the sway of a powerful landholding peasant community, it is farm sector-related issues like MSP that remain at the top of the electoral agenda. Subjects like national security, international terrorism, India’s exalted place in the global order, or issues raised by the opposition related to religious minority rights, decline of political rights/institutions, and misuse of state agencies are relatively less important.

Will the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections bear witness once more to Punjab’s exceptionalism? Or will it be “mainstreamed”?

Since voting in Punjab is slated fairly late (June 1), the trends are yet to converge firmly. What is clear is that the Aap-congress alliance has not taken place in the state, unlike in neighbouring Haryana, Delhi and some other places. Here, too, Punjab is an outlier. Unlike in other states where the BJP has been keen to accommodate even smaller parties, it is going solo in Punjab, spurning the chance to revive its ties with the Akali Dal.

Even in a general election, it is the statelevel leadership and issues that seem to matter more. The likely absence of Arvind Kejriwal means that Bhagwant Mann will be spearheading the AAP campaign. His leadership skills will be tested in case he faces an electoral reversal. Will he be able to keep the flock together? Similarly, for the Congress, it will be state leaders like Raja Warring, Partap Bajwa, and Sukhjinder Randhawa who will have to lead the campaign. The future of the Akali Dal and Sukhbir Badal too is at stake.

As for the BJP, despite importing Sunil Jakhar — a leader with impeccable integrity and a gifted orator — from the Congress, it will once again bank on PM Modi. A party that seems to be trying to win every seat in India will certainly go all out in Punjab. There are constituencies with a sizable Hindu vote where the BJP in alliance with the Akali Dal secured victories in the past: Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur (five times) and Amritsar (thrice). It would be interesting to see whether the Modi magic finally works out in the state. All in all, an interesting election to watch.

The writer is professor, Department of Political Science, Panjab University, Chandigarh