Mann visible in Haryana polls, but Punjab governance needs attention

The AAP formed the government in Punjab in March 2022 with a slew of promises. Only a few of these promises have been kept

In March this year, Arvind Kejriwal, then Delhi chief minister, was arrested on suspicion of money laundering in connection with alleged corruption in awarding liquor licences.

The Lok Sabha polls were just around the corner. Mr Kejriwal was the country’s first serving chief minister to be arrested. State ministers Atishi, now chief minister, and Saurabh Bhardwaj, who were leading a mega protest march in Delhi, and other protesters were detained. Dramatic visuals from ITO (in central Delhi) showed Atishi being dragged away by cops to a bus meant to take the protesters to the nearest police station.

As part of security arrangements, the police closed all roads leading to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) headquarters. Water cannons and paramilitary forces were deployed on the road leading to the Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters. The ITO Metro station was shut down.

But all this was in Delhi.

In Amritsar, Punjab, it was all business as usual. No water cannons, nor protests, you would never have guessed the founder of the party in power in Punjab had been hauled off to prison. There were no reverberations of the arrest anywhere else in Punjab either. This set off chatter that all was not well between Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal.

The chatter restarted earlier this week, when the Punjab government effected its fourth cabinet reshuffle in the 30 months the AAP has been in power in the state. That the reshuffle should happen within days of Mr Kejriwal’s release suggested it was not Mr Mann but the party bosses who were pulling the strings.

The AAP formed the government in Punjab in March 2022 with a slew of promises. These included free power, employment, corruption-free governance, world-class schools, health facilities, a Rs 1,000 per month allowance for every adult woman, an increase in old-age pension to Rs 2,500 per month, reverting to the Old Pension Scheme (OPS), and eliminating drugs from the state.

Only a few of these promises have been kept. The decision to revert to the OPS, for instance, is yet to be implemented and pensioner organisations have warned of a statewide agitation that will cover Haryana as well, on October 2. The AAP has high hopes of winning in Haryana (polling for Assembly elections on October 5).

The one that hasn’t, conspicuously, been kept is the vow of corruption-free government. In the reshuffle just effected, the Department of Mining has had its fourth minister after three previous ones were sacked. Mining should have got the Punjab government annual revenue amounting to Rs 20,000 crore, a figure the party itself promised in its election manifesto. Instead of revenue going up, local media and Opposition leaders allege the nexus between the illegal mining mafia and the government has lost revenue for the state, raising only about Rs 300 crore annually.

The AAP government has its critics in the Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). However, the government is facing attacks from within as well. Policeman-turned-legislator Kunwar Vijay Pratap, member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Amritsar North, has criticised his own government in the legislature — not just on the issue of handling cases of sacrilege against the Guru Granth Sahib dating back to 2015 but also on local self-governance matters in Amritsar like sewage management and water supply. He complained a junior engineer was more powerful than the chief minister, pointing to several orders issued by the government that were simply ignored by the local administration.

That the AAP still has traction with the voter in Punjab is evident from the party’s victory in the Jalandhar West byelection held in July. The sitting AAP MLA from the constituency, Sheetal Angural, crossed the floor to the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha election. He was fielded by the BJP for the byelection. It was a big error of judgement. He lost the election after Mr Mann rented a house in Jalandhar, camped in the constituency, and made the victory of Mohit Bhagat, the AAP candidate, a matter of personal prestige. Mr Angural lost the poll by a margin of more than 35,000 votes, quite substantial for an Assembly constituency.

This was something of a reversal of fortune. In the Lok Sabha election, Mr Mann and the AAP had promised to win all 13 Lok Sabha seats. They could win only three. The party had got 42 per cent of the vote in the 2022 Assembly elections. In the Lok Sabha polls in Punjab it got 26 per cent. The increase in the BJP’s vote share in the Lok Sabha elections suggests other political players are not sitting still and twiddling their thumbs.

As the campaign for the Assembly elections in neighbouring Haryana carries on apace, Mr Mann is quite visible, testifying to his personal appeal among voters. But the performance of the Punjab government is below par. And when you add to that Mr Mann’s own ambitions in relation to his party chief, Arvind Kejriwal, maybe some course correction is needed. Before anything else, Mr Mann needs to get his act together and tone up governance in the state.