The Battle of Amritsar begins

Arun Jaitley and Amarinder Singh have begun their titanic clash in the holy city, opening old wounds in the process

The holy city of Amritsar is no stranger to battles, having had its fair share ever since it was founded by Guru Ram Das in 1574. It has also witnessed several confrontations between charismatic leaders, be it Guru Hargobind versus Mukhlis Khan (1634) or Baba Deep Singh versus Jahan Khan (1757).

The 2014 Lok Sabha elections finds Amritsar playing host to another ‘clash of titans’. Veteran BJP leader Arun Jaitley, who has roots in Amritsar, is taking on ex-Punjab chief minister, Captain Amarinder Singh of the Congress.

Just a week before voting begins on April 7, the contest in Amritsar has already turned ugly, and over an event that still haunts Punjab: Operation Bluestar.

The Captain fired the first salvo when he accused Jaitley of adopting "double standards" by opposing the controversial Bluestar Memorial built inside the Golden Temple Complex but "enjoying the hospitality of those who got it constructed”, i.e. the Shiromani Akali Dal, which is the BJP’s alliance partner in Punjab.

Jaitley responded with equal ferocity. In a Facebook post, he said, “I have always believed that Operation Bluestar was an ill-conceived and ill-planned operation…Amarinder is the candidate of a party which planned and executed it.”

To this, the ‘Maharaja of Patiala’ told Jaitley on Thursday, “Your party the BJP and your ally Parkash Singh Badal, are as much responsible for the tragedy of Operation Bluestar and terrorism as anyone else. Before questioning the Congress, Jaitley should ask people like L K Advani and Badal.”

While both, Jaitley and Amarinder may have raised the poll pitch with their remarks, the current slugfest is highly unfortunate. It shows how both sides, Congress and the BJP-SAD still rake up emotive issues from Punjab’s troubled past in order to score political brownie points, whereas real problems confronting the state are brushed aside.

For a number of years now, Punjab has been suffering. The state, once a gold standard for prosperity and the spirit of enterprise, today finds itself in a serious state of decline. Its debts have mounted in recent years. Investment has not picked up. Its famed agriculture sector has seen crisis in recent times, with reports trickling in of farmers committing suicides a la Vidarbha.

The ruling Akalis have been criticized for making the state the fief of the party’s main family, to which the chief minister and his deputy belong. Corruption and ineptitude are rife.

Most seriously, Punjabi society is facing some of its toughest challenges since the heydays of insurgency. The state, which shares a long border with Pakistan, and lies on the main drug smuggling route between Afghanistan and Southeast Asia, has seen more young people fall prey to drug addiction. The issue had taken centre stage last year, with arguments over it between Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi and Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal.

Another health problem the state is facing is a cancer epidemic in its Malwa region, caused by pollution of ground water sources.

The city of Amritsar, which Jaitley and Amarinder are fighting for, faces myriad problems of its own. The Partition of India in 1947 was a death-knell of sorts for Amritsar, one from which the city has still not recovered. It lost most of its Muslim population, who worked in its industries to the holocaust and subsequent ethnic cleansing. Worse, the partition converted Amritsar into a border city, just kilometres away from the volatile Indo-Pak border. All this affected the city’s economy badly. In recent years, Amritsar has started flourishing again, mainly on the back of tourism. But still, the city faces major challenges of infrastructure. Navjot Singh Sidhu, Amritsar’s MP in the 14th and 15th Lok Sabhas, hardly did anything for his constituency. The UPA II government has approved the Amritsar-Kolkata Industrial Corridor Project, which could bring a turnaround in the city’s fortunes. But still, it is a long way off.

Instead of debating on such issues, the two candidates are instead focusing on an incident, which Amritsar, Punjab and the rest of India would better not remember.

The reason is simple: emotive issues sell better. And this time, Amritsar is a high-stakes game, with both candidates and camps putting their prestige at stake.

In the 15 national elections since independence, the Congress has won the constituency of Amritsar a record nine times (1952, 1957, 1962, 1971, 1980, 1984, 1991, 1996, and 1999). In 2004 and 2009 though, Sidhu’s star power ensured that the seat went to the BJP. This time though, the Congress hopes to capture Amritsar again. But with Jaitley making his electoral debut in 2014, the BJP wants it too. Hence, the shrill rhetoric, and the ‘Tu Tu Main Mains’.

And with April 7 inching closer with each passing day, the battle for Amritsar would only get fiercer, shriller and dirtier.