Mann ki baat, the wishes of AAP’s Delhi leadership, and Punjab’s restive street

In a state beset with legacy problems like a Rs 3 lakh-crore debt, farm stagnation, restive population, rising unemployment, and an entrenched drug menace, the ecstasy that follows a win as massive as 92/117 is bound to run into a wall called “heightened expectations”.

In a little over a month, Punjab’s Bhagwant Singh Mann government has been barely able to grapple with the single biggest accusation against it -- that it is controlled by the party bosses sitting in Delhi, a claim that AAP has seemingly done everything possible to prove valid.

While political pundits have been quick to declare AAP a potential all-India force, possibly on the way to nudging Congress out as the principal opposition to the BJP, and AAP itself has made tall claims about its narrative penetrating deeper in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and in many other states, it is the party’s performance in Punjab that will continue generating headlines which might help or mar its dreams.

Also read: A 'rubber doll' has become Punjab's CM: Sidhu

The truth about AAP’s massive victory is that it garnered the votes of a very angry populace. The victory by itself could not assuage that anger. Unlike what has often happened in the past at the federal as well as provincial level in India, the crowds are not showing any signs of going home or becoming complacent after achieving an immediate electoral objective.

And therein begin the problems for Punjab’s AAP. At a time when it continues to face questions, it clearly betrays the fact that even with a 92/117 majority in the Assembly, it does not have any political capital of its own. The criticism in Punjab of the party’s five Rajya Sabha picks came from within the cadre itself. The optics of Punjab’s power officials being summoned by or sent to meet the Chief Minister and officials of Delhi has not done much good to AAP’s reputation.

Punjab’s AAP has remained deafeningly silent on every single issue in the national headlines, be it on the agenda of hate politics being peddled in the form of halal or hijab debates, bulldozer baba (UP) or bulldozer mama (MP) politics or the demolitions in Delhi’s Jahangirpuri.

On top of it, the Mann government continues to follow the Delhi model in many problematic respects, including splashing the newspapers and towns with huge advertisements and hoardings projecting minor announcements as major unprecedented achievements. Stratagems like these are the very stuff that proved to be the undoing of the Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).

A strong anti-Centre strain has defined Punjab’s politics for decades now. During his first tenure, Capt. Amarinder Singh carved out a strong political constituency for himself by standing up for Punjab’s rights over its river waters and even fell afoul of his own party and the then PM Manmohan Singh. The SAD suffered immense political damage by being seen as unable to pick a bone with the Modi-Shah regime over the controversial farm laws.

Also read: Sidhu says Congress needs to reinvent itself, backs 'honest man' Mann in fighting mafia

Given that, Mann dashing down to Delhi for every single thing, and AAP’s central leadership’s proclivity to keep all decision-making power with itself, is likely to make AAP vulnerable to the questioning crowds.

The AAP faces an even bigger challenge: It could soon be up against the street. The nemesis of the Congress or the SAD did not emerge from AAP; it came from the street. It was the street in Punjab that had risen against Modi’s farm bills. Kejriwal’s party only piggybacked on that to power.

Those crowds demand solutions to highly intractable problems. When you make ‘badlaav’, or ‘change’ the leitmotif of your intervention in politics, one cannot start dishing out the exact same thing as the previous regimes did. Inherent in this transition in Punjab were challenges not merely of governance or reforms to square the circle but of upholding the sanctity of the trust the voters vested in AAP.

AAP plans to go to the entire country with Punjab as an example, but it must remember that the state is also a litmus test. So far, Mann’s army of 92 has been fighting very small battles, and repeatedly landing in quixotic situations. It linked free power to caste, and failed to prevent police action against protesting farmers. Meanwhile, bigger problems haven’t gone home. People are still waiting for the roadmap to pull the state out of its Rs 3 lakh crore debt. Mann still has to walk the talk on AAP’s populist Rs 1,000-a-month pay out to every woman, besides a string of other pre-poll ‘guarantees’.

With its public school education infrastructure in a shambles, coupled with the massive privatisation of higher education, Mann faces more questions than the answers he can quickly fetch from Delhi. Selecting a private higher education business baron as Punjab’s Rajya Sabha MP does little for the party’s incessant anti-privatisation rhetoric.

With a 9% unemployment rate, and the state’s revenues barely enough to cover salaries, pensions and servicing old debt, AAP now enjoys two guarantees: It will not have enough money to revamp education or health infrastructure, and there will be a continuous supply of angry youth questioning it.

With neither the CM nor a single minister having any administrative experience managing the state’s affairs, and a shrewd Modi-Shah regime waiting to entangle the newbie in new conundrums every day, AAP should be a very worried party, its 92/117 majority notwithstanding.

Rumblings from inside AAP are the next highly awaited political show in Punjab, and there is a lot of stuff, including territorial claims over the Sutlej-Yamuna Link, the Punjabi language, river waters, etc., that could be slippery turfs to negotiate.

Mann’s good fortune is that he has a very weak opposition in the Assembly. In a street versus party situation, Punjab’s street has rarely lost, though the results have not been very good for the state. Punjab’s AAP might have to strike a stronger stance even with its own Delhi leadership to prevent that clash with the street.

Being a Delhi-loyalist isn’t a slogan that has impressed Punjabis much in the past. Nothing much has changed historically to make it palatable now. The optics of a man who wears a turban in the style of an iconic martyr but is forever bowing his head before his Delhi bosses hasn’t added to Mann’s stature. If that’s how the ‘honeymoon’ is going, one can only guess what’s coming next. The street is waiting, and it remains restive.

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