Congress' late manifesto release a desperate prayer for Punjab miracle

As the high-decibel campaign for the Punjab polls drew to a close on February 18, the Congress party rushed to declare its election manifesto, with Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu making 13 key promises to the electorate. The unveiling of the election manifesto, usually a high point of any party’s election campaign, appeared almost an afterthought — a hurried attempt to complete a formality.

The renascent Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), tipped to make massive electoral gains in Punjab at the cost of the Congress, had declared its poll promises over a month ago, long before the party even finalised Bhagwant Mann as its Chief Ministerial candidate. Sukhbir Badal’s Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), once a principal political force in the state and now considered an outlier in the ongoing AAP-vs-Congress poll battle, had unveiled its manifesto on February 15.

Party in disarray

There is no denying that the Congress manifesto is stacked with populist promises that appeal to voters — urban and rural, men and women, young and old. The manifesto features the party’s pledge to provide one lakh jobs a year, free education to the needy, free health services in government hospitals, a ₹1,100 per month allowance and eight LPG cylinders for free to women, ₹1,000 crore corpus for encouraging start-ups et al.

And yet, with Punjab set to vote on February 20 and active campaigning now barred under the poll code, the Congress will have neither time nor mass canvassing methods to tom-tom any of its promises, which presumably took some effort to collate, given Sidhu’s assertion that the party had done “a lot of work” to ensure that debt-ridden Punjab will have the finances to deliver these expensive sops.

Though there was hardly any need for further proof, the long delay by the Congress to unveil its manifesto came as a resounding reminder of the disarray, disaffection, dissent and defections that have hamstrung the Grand Old Party’s re-election bid in the only north Indian state it presently rules.

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Bombastic claims of a sweep, notwithstanding, events in Punjab’s dynamic political landscape over the past few weeks had made it clear that the Congress was fast losing electoral ground just as the AAP, and even the Akalis, were in rebound mode. Ironically, the unprecedented trailblazing campaign by Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra across the state over the past week and their shrill attacks at Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP, based on scandalous ‘revelations’ made by the Delhi CM’s friend-turned foe Kumar Vishwas, have only strengthened the perception that the Congress was staring at an electoral rout at the hands of a party that made its Assembly poll debut in Punjab just five years ago.

The last six months – particularly since the Gandhi siblings emboldened Sidhu to launch his offensive against then CM Amarinder Singh that eventually led to his acrimonious exit from the party and Channi’s swearing-in as Punjab’s first Dalit Sikh CM – have been a crash course for any political party in how to lose an election in a few quick steps.

Singh’s exit from the CM office in September, Channi’s wild card entry and Singh’s subsequent alliance with the BJP had given the Congress a golden opportunity to negate the anti-incumbency that had been brewing against it in the state for some time. What followed in subsequent months, though, displayed an inexplicable eagerness on part of the Congress high command to lose power in a state where, among the presently five poll-bound Assemblies, it was believed to have the best chance of victory.

Reams have been written about the party’s internal squabbles that played out in full public glare for the past few months with nearly every leader of any consequence – Channi, Sidhu, Sunil Jakhar, Manish Tewari, Ravneet Bittu, Partap Bajwa, Jasbir Singh Dimpa, Rana Gurjeet Singh – working at cross-purposes. As the poll campaign gained momentum, so did the feuds within the Congress.

Mann ki baat

Meanwhile, the AAP, which was tipped to win the 2017 Punjab polls but finished with just 20 MLAs against the Congress’s 77 in the 117-member Assembly owing to a lop-sided campaign and some last-minute self-goals, seemed to learn from its past mistakes. Though Kejriwal continued to hog attention as his party’s calling card in Punjab, the decision to finally declare Bhagwant Mann as AAP’s CM face galvanized voters towards the party, particularly in the state’s all-important Malwa region, which accounts for 69 of the state’s 117 seats.

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“The projection of Mann was the point when AAP became a serious contender for power. Irrespective of what the Congress, Akalis or BJP may say, Mann finds a resonance among Punjabis… with farmers and voters in the Malwa region, he has an appeal that can’t be denied; the smear-campaign by rivals over his drinking habits make no difference… Punjab had, even in 2017, been looking for an alternative to the Congress and Akalis; the sentiment is even stronger this time due to the way the current government functioned in the past year or two… by projecting a local face through Mann, the AAP has tapped into that aspiration and many in Punjab, especially voters in rural areas, believe AAP can be the alternative to traditional parties,” Jagroop Sekhon, professor of political science at the Guru Nanak Dev University told The Federal.

Congress insiders, however, believe that the diminished chances of their party’s victory in the polls have less to do with the AAP’s campaign or Mann’s projection as CM face and more to do with how the Congress leadership “threw away the election”.

“Give me one instance in the past two months which showed any seriousness on our part to win… from ticket distribution to our leadership’s refusal to address disaffection among party workers; we made a grand mess of everything… on a dozen seats, we have rebels queering the pitch for our official candidates, the CM’s own brother is contesting as an independent; a majority of our 11 MPs are absent from campaigning, some are actively working against the party… Sidhu, who was handpicked by Rahul and Priyanka to be PCC chief despite overwhelming opposition, acts like a bigger opponent than Kejriwal and Badal put together,” a Congress MP told The Federal, claiming that the party “may not win more than 25 seats unless there is a miracle in the next 24 hours.”

Line of divide

What had made the Congress feel buoyant over its victory prospects, say party sources, is the assumption that by endorsing Channi as the CM face, the Congress would consolidate the over 32 per cent Dalit vote in Punjab, while the other dominant communities – Jat Sikhs and Hindus – would be split between AAP, Akali Dal and the BJP-Punjab Lok Congress (Amarinder Singh’s new outfit) alliance. A senior party leader said that the Congress high command had been cautioned that such an assumption had its obvious pitfalls as “the Dalits don’t vote en bloc and by alienating Jat Sikhs and Hindus, the Congress may trigger a counter-polarisation in favour of AAP or the Akalis”.

As the campaigning progressed, Congress sources say that this fear of a Jat Sikh-Hindu consolidation against the party turned into reality. Congress’s Hindu leaders like Sunil Jakhar and Manish Tewari made no secret of their sense of hurt over the identity anxiousness within their community that had been caused since party veteran Ambika Soni declared last September that only a Sikh can be Punjab CM.

The AAP latched on to this sentiment, particularly after Jakhar’s public statement of being denied the CM chair, though as many as 42 MLAs favoured his appointment following Amarinder’s ouster as against the two MLAs who voted in Channi’s favour. Raghav Chaddha, AAP’s poll in-charge for Punjab, regularly dubbed Congress as being “anti-Hindu”, fomenting a caste divide that Punjab had not traditionally been known for – at least not visibly.

Congress veteran Ashwani Kumar’s resignation from the party, days before polling in the state, stressed on this caste divide too. Kumar, a former Union Law minister but no mass leader in Punjab, had been sulking ever since the Congress denied a ticket to his son, Ashish Kumar, to contest from his native Sujanpur constituency in Gurdaspur.

When Kumar quit, he predictably took the moral high ground and blamed his decision on the listlessness of his party, even terming the leadership in Punjab “the worst in 40 years” and predicting a “wave in favour of AAP”.

Meanwhile, according to the sources, the internal assessments by the party showed that the AAP steadily gaining ground in Hindu and Jat Sikh dominated seats, including those in the state’s Majha region where the AAP had drawn a blank in 2017.

Majha, comprising districts of the state that share the international border with Pakistan and have a mix of Jat Sikh and Hindu communities, accounts for 25 seats – a large chunk of which the Congress had won in the last polls. The region has a reputation for voting en bloc for any party and, thus, being an electoral bellwether.

Six ministers in the Channi government, including both deputy CMs – Sukhjinder Randhawa and OP Soni – as well as PCC chief Sidhu and Rajya Sabha MP Partap Bajwa, are seeking election to the Assembly from the Majha region.

While the Congress and AAP may trade acerbic barbs in the electoral arena, off record leaders from both parties are nearly unanimous in claiming that Congress bigwigs in the poll fray from constituencies in Majha – Sidhu in Amritsar East, Randhawa in Dera Baba Nanak, Tript Rajinder Bajwa in Fatehgarh Churian, Bajwa in Qadian – are all facing tough electoral battles.

The Akali Dal pulled a surprise by pitting its controversial leader Bikram Majithia against Sidhu in Amritsar East. Political commentators believe that besides tying Sidhu down to his constituency, Majithia’s entry in the Amritsar East constituency after leaving his traditional Majitha seat for his wife Ganieve Kaur, had also breathed life into the Akali campaign in the Majha region, an old bastion of the party that it had lost to the Congress in 2017.

Bajwa, who is the Congress’s manifesto committee chief, was so stuck in the campaign for his home turf of Qadian that he refused to leave the seat even for a few hours on February 18 to be in Chandigarh when Sidhu and Channi unveiled the manifesto.

AAP’s candidate from the Dirba seat in Sangrur district and leader of Opposition in the Punjab assembly, Harpal Singh Cheema, told The Federal that he was confident of his party “getting an absolute majority” and that, unlike 2017 when the AAP was limited largely to the Malwa region (it won 18 of its 20 seats from here), this time “we will win seats across Malwa, Majha and Doaba (the third region that accounts for 23 seats)… the result in Majha will surprise everyone”.

An Akali chance

If the AAP is hopeful of romping to power backed on its narrative for change and consolidation of votes from all dominant communities, particularly Hindus and Jat Sikhs, the Akalis are optimistic of a revival too.

A close aide of Sukhbir Badal told The Federal, “everyone is talking about this election being an AAP vs. Congress contest but the Akali-BSP alliance will spring a surprise… I am not making any claims of Akali Dal forming the next government, but I can assure you that there will be a huge improvement in our performance; we are particularly hopeful of improving our tally in the Malwa and Doaba regions… the AAP is doing well in rural seats but in urban centres like Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Bathinda, we are the main challengers to the Congress.”

Congress sources admit that the consolidation of Dalit votes that the party was banking on since projecting Channi as the CM face and fielding him from two constituencies – his tradition seat of Chamkaur Sahib and the AAP stronghold of Bhadaur in Barnala district – is not panning out as expected.

“Channi himself has a fight on his hands in Chamkaur Sahib… we may perform well in the Dalit-dominated Doaba region because this belt has a substantial Ravidassia (Channi’s community) vote but in other SC-reserved seats, there is no visible consolidation… the youth are veering towards AAP while among the older voters, there is a split towards the Akali-BSP alliance.”

With a day to go before polling, the Congress is truly praying for a miracle. The allegations of AAP co-founder Kumar Vishwas over Kejriwal’s alleged links with Khalistan sympathisers has given the Congress – and even the BJP – a chance to revive memories of Kejriwal’s night halt at the residence of an alleged Khalistani militant in the run up to the 2017 polls that had, ostensibly, cost the AAP dearly.

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Vishwas has been threatening to make more damning revelations on this front before polling. Kejriwal is now playing the victim-card claiming that the Congress, Akalis and BJP had all ganged up against him. The Congress has been playing up these allegations, demanding that Kejriwal come clean on the charges levelled by Vishwas – Channi has even written to Union home minister Amit Shah seeking a probe in the matter and been assured that the issue will be “looked into”.

Meanwhile, the Congress is also trying to woo some prominent farmer leaders to endorse its re-election bid. Late Friday night, the official Facebook page of Kisan Ekta Morcha put out a post appealing for a vote against BJP and AAP; dubbing Kejriwal as “anti-farmer” and AAP as the “Team B of RSS”. Congress’s social media cell, obviously burning the midnight oil, promptly began tweeting screenshots of the posts in the hope that a state that was at the vanguard of the 15-month-long peasant protest that ended last December will heed this advice and vote for the Congress despite a breakaway faction of farm unions also being in the electoral fray. The desperation is all too telling.