Punjab balancing act: Congress, AAP star campaigners avoid attacks on each other

But in their poll rallies in Punjab, the star campaigners of the AAP and Congress have focused their attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, cautioning electors that to safeguard democracy and the Constitution, it was imperative to stop the BJP from returning to power.

Campaigning for Congress candidates, both Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi avoided attacking the ruling AAP, just as AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal has avoided bad-mouthing the opposition Congress.

Addressing a rally in Amritsar, Rahul said Modi and BJP leaders could “change, scrap, finish off and dump the Constitution” if they win the election. He also hit out at Modi and the BJP for “doing nothing for farmers in 10 years of rule”, and of branding them (farmers) as “terrorists” during the 2020-21 farm agitation against the three farm laws that have now been repealed.

Priyanka Gandhi’s address in Khanna last Sunday also centred on Modi, where she hit out at him on farm issues and inflation, among other things. She said the PM “simply failed to understand Punjab’s jazba (spirit)”.

Addressing a gathering in Ferozepur, Kejriwal lashed out at the PM for putting him, his Cabinet colleagues in Delhi and political opponents, in jail. He was also critical of Modi and the BJP for politicising the Ram Temple consecration ceremony.

However, at the state level, there remains no love lost between the ruling AAP and the Congress, with Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann repeatedly saying that AAP will make it 13-0 in the state, only to be mocked by state Congress leaders, who predict the same result in their favour. The Congress has also fielded its firebrand Bholath MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira, a strong critic of CM Mann, to contest from the CM’s pocket borough of Sangrur.

At a recent press conference in Chandigarh, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the reason the Congress did not tie up with the AAP in Punjab is that the people of the state had mandated his party to act as the main Opposition in the 2022 state elections. He went on to emphasise that in the Lok Sabha, MPs of both Punjab parties would act in tandem as part of the INDIA bloc.

On the other side, for the first time, the BJP in Punjab is going solo and contesting all the 13 seats. While its vote share is expected to increase over the previous elections, on the whole, it is not being seen as a challenger on most of the 13 seats.

Former BJP ally Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) is hoping to rebuild after back-to-back drubbings at the hustings. Among other things, the SAD is seeking a mandate on the plank that being the only regional party in the fray, it alone can take care of the interests of the people of the state.

While the SAD is not on the radar of central leaders of the Congress, the AAP, and even the BJP, Bhagwant Mann continues to target the SAD ruling family, and has come up with his own version of the traditional folk song “Kikli kaleer di 2.0”, to take potshots at the Badals, predicting that the 2024 Lok Sabha polls will mark the end of the Badal family in the political arena.