Leaders make little room for young blood
At 84, and having successfully fought cancer, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal says he feels fit like a 48 year old. And he is not the only politician from the State who is refusing to hang up his boots.
There are nearly three dozen Punjab politicians contesting elections this time who are above 70, and most of them are from the ruling Akali Dal alliance and the opposition Congress.
The four-time CM is the oldest candidate in fray.
Former CM and state Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh, contesting from his home turf Patiala, this year joined the 70-plus league of netas.
The Congress has 10 septuagenarian leaders vying for treasury benches, while the incumbent alliance has fielded a dozen such politicians.
Many of these old set of leaders have held on to their political turf incessantly, leaving little space for aspiring greenhorns.
In fact, the political landscape that is fast shaping in Punjab offers a strange mix. If Akali Dal has its tallest and oldest candidate — the chief minister — in the fray, his party also has the youngest of all.
Akali Dal’s Inderbir Singh Bolaria, 32, trying his luck from Amritsar (South), represents the party’s youth face.
Significant post
Veteran party leaders across major parties in Punjab have dominated the political scene for several years, be it representation in state Cabinet or in occupying significant posts in the party set up.
But parties in Punjab are also in no mood to ignore younger politicians.
The Congress has fielded 27 not-so-old faces who are below 45 — the highest number by a single party in Punjab in this category.
Three among them are below 33. Akali Dal-BJP combine has fielded 21 candidates who are under 45.
But a recent trend surfacing in Punjab has come as a dampener for younger candidates. First-time youth voters have shown a lukewarm response to the voter registration campaign in the state.
During the state-wide registration campaign conducted in November, and in several phases earlier, less than two lakh youth in the age group of 18-21 got themselves registered as voters.
Official estimates were preditcting the number of fresh voters to be at least six lakh, considering the projected increase in population of the state since the 2001 Census.
Fresh registration was underway since January 2.
Hand-picked
The Congress list of young politicians has at least six faces, including a woman candidate, Satkar Kaur, who have been hand-picked by AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi.
Some of them have been student leaders in Punjab. Barring one, everybody in Team Rahul is under 40.
