Future of AAP in Punjab has been hit by a broom
For a fledgling political party that had taken the Punjabi hinterland like a veritable hurricane just over a year ago, the Aam Aadmi Party’s downfall in the border state has been severe, to say the least. Events from the past year and especially the past week are predictably leading many in the state to the question: “Is it curtains for the AAP in Punjab?
Two months after Arvind Kejriwal donned a Shaheed Bhagat Singh-style basanti (yellow) Sikh turban at the Maghi Mela (fair) in Muktsar Town in January 2016, internal surveys conducted by most political contenders, including the Prashant Kishor-led Indian Political Action Committee (IPAC) working for the Congress, had indicated a landslide in favour of the AAP.
The party was poised for a clean sweep of the electorally significant south and south-western Malwa region, which had long been considered an impenetrable bastion of the Shiromani Akali Dal, barring small pockets like Patiala that have long remained loyal to Capt. Amarinder Singh and the Congress.
But all that transpired within and around the AAP in the ten months leading up to the assembly elections on February 4 evidently cost the party the very confidence it had inspired in Punjabi voters.
For starters, Kejriwal’s inability to induct former Indian cricketer Navjot Sidhu who many believed had resigned his Rajya Sabha and Bharatiya Janata Party memberships on the promise of a key role in AAP’s Punjab campaign.
This was closely followed by AAP’s highly controversial decision to sack Sucha Singh Chhotepur, its then state convener in Punjab, on evidently dubious charges of accepting money from a prospective ticket seeker. While the widely talked about (by AAP’s Delhi leadership) sting video purportedly showing Chhotepur receiving the cash has still not been released, his exit in the fall of 2016 witnessed a virtual collapse in the party with scores of workers and volunteers also quitting in protest.
And even though AAP appeared to rebuild itself in the state, it remained bogged down with a host of allegations ranging from huge cash demands from candidates to some highly murky charges of sexual exploitation and sleaze.
In retrospect though, it must be said that a lot of the presence AAP’s leaders claimed in Punjab and particularly in the Malwa region, was in reality mostly limited to cyberspace — social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp.
The party could score a mere 20 seats against the “100-plus” that leaders like Kejriwal, Sanjay Singh and Durgesh Pathak had so vociferously claimed right through the poll campaign and beyond polling day, right until the results on March 11 said it differently. And now, the rapidly unfolding events of the past week would suggest to many that the AAP is set for an implosion in Punjab.
Consider the following: Even before Bhagwant Mann, the party’s comedian-turned- MP from Sangrur who lost the Assembly poll against former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal in Jalalabad, was made the new state convener on May 10, indications that this was imminent had already kicked up a storm weeks before. Volunteers and functionaries, including NRI members in Canada and Australia wrote to Kejriwal warning that Mann’s elevation was unacceptable.
Later the Delhi leadership’s insistence on “foisting” the comedian on the Punjab unit, provoked sharp criticism from senior members and MLAs, including former journalist Kanwar Sandhu who said the move was “detrimental.”
A day after Mann was anointed state convener, reportedly after extracting a promise that he would try to give up his alcohol habit, the incumbent convener Gurpreet Singh Waraich aka Ghuggi, who claimed that Kejriwal hadn’t even the decency to inform him about the change, quit from primary membership of AAP. Earlier, within minutes of the announcement of Mann’s name in Delhi, the party’s chief whip in the Punjab Assembly, Sukhpal Singh Khaira, also quit his post.
Speculation is now rife about a vertical split in the Punjab unit with a significant number seeking alternative political moorings.
Even though Khaira tried to scotch the speculation on May 11, it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to predict the AAP’s future in Punjab.
(Courtesy: Mail Today)