Komal Amit Gera follows Punjab’s new phenomenon, Manpreet Badal
The community centre in Mohali, a city adjacent to Punjab’s capital Chandigarh, is choc-a-bloc with people. About 4,000 men and women, many of them young and possibly first-time voters, have braved the heat to hear out a man who is emerging as a leader to watch out for in what has until now been the battleground of two of the country’s oldest parties — the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), which came into being on December 13, 1920, and the Congress, which was founded in 1885. Two weeks later, on May 7, another 10,000 people land up at the nearby town Lalru to listen to him. Manpreet Singh Badal, the St Stephen’s educated, University of London law graduate and estranged nephew of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, is a phenomenon that has been building across the state since November 14, 2010 when he launched his ‘Jago Punjab Yatra’ (Wake Up Punjab). In the four months that followed, he has taken his movement across all the 117 constituencies of the state, attracting thousands, even lakhs, of people.
Like everywhere, in Mohali too Manpreet Badal doesn’t keep the people waiting. The crowd here is mainly urban, though farmers from nearby areas have also turned up. Soon after he arrives in his SUV, which he often drives himself, and without any security guard — he didn’t want guards posted outside his house or a beacon atop his official vehicle even when he was Punjab Finance Minister — Manpreet Badal heads for the podium. A sea of yellow accompanies him. His supporters are mostly wearing yellow turbans. He himself has a yellow stole around his neck. The flag of his newly-launched party, People’s Party of Punjab (PPP), is also yellow. The colour is symbolic. It’s the colour Punjab relates to. It’s the colour sprinkled across the mustard fields of the state. But more importantly, it’s the colour that stands for sacrifice. And sacrifice is what Manpreet Badal insists the debt-ridden state needs to make if it wants to reclaim its dignity.
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The hour-long speech he makes is nothing like the one he made 44 years ago, when he was only five. He had spoken only one sentence back then: “Mere taiyaji nu vote pao (Vote for my Uncle).” “Uncle” was SAD supremo Parkash Singh Badal. But that was in a different time and in a different place. The venue then was a town in Punjab’s Muktsar district, Gidderbaha. It used to be Parkash Singh Badal’s constituency but now swears by his nephew. In 1995, Manpreet Badal was elected member of legislative assembly from here. And then again in 1997, 2002 and 2007. When Parkash Singh Badal became chief minister in 2007 for the fourth time, Manpreet Badal was handpicked as finance minister.
By then the once-affluent Punjab, which had been under Congress rule for the past five years, was already under a debt of Rs 33,000 crore. By 2010, the debt had mounted to Rs 70,000 crore. The revenue deficit, which stood at Rs 1,749 crore in 2006-07, had also shot past Rs 4,200 crore in 2009-10. Manpreet Badal had been finance minister for over three years now. A poet at heart known to frequently recite the couplets of Urdu poets like Faiz and Ustad Daman to establish his point, he faced criticism for lacking the prudence needed in a finance minister.
“My outlook on fiscal management never coincided with the larger interests of the Akali Dal,” says Manpreet Badal. “I got into a running battle with the Cabinet as finance minister. For the first time in the history of India, the Union Ministry of Finance had constituted a committee to restructure the debts of West Bengal, Kerala and Punjab which were facing severe financial crises,” he says. The Centre’s condition for the bailout was that the state’s revenue deficit should be brought down to zero in the next five years. “A political approval in the state assembly was needed.” Manpreet Badal’s view was that the Akali government should tighten its purse strings on power subsidy to farmers — a sensitive issue in Punjab where farmers form the largest chunk of voters. The Akali government accused Manpreet Badal of toeing the line of the Congress-led UPA. The showdown, which many viewed as a personal battle between Manpreet Badal and his cousin, Sukhbir Singh Badal, Punjab’s Deputy Chief Minister and son of Parkash Singh Badal, culminated in Manpreet Badal’s resignation as finance minister. He also broke his ties with the Akali Dal — a party he says he was “born into”. A parallel battle waged on Facebook with Manpreet Badal’s fans writing Urdu couplets in his favour.
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But that’s all history now, another chapter in Akali Dal’s past which is marred by factionalism. The party, which is based on the philosophy that religion and politics go hand in hand, currently has six prominent groups each claiming to be the Akali Dal. SAD (Badal) is one of them. Manpreet Badal has chosen not to launch another Akali Dal like other breakaway factions. Instead, the man who carries a tiffin in his car when he’s out campaigning, quotes Marx, whose philosophy he is inspired by, to explain why he floated PPP: “Way back in the 18th century, Karl Marx had pointed out that those in power had used religion to keep the common people under check. The politicians of Punjab have done the same.”
PPP’s birth was announced at Khatkar Kalan, the birthplace of another man inspired by Marx — Bhagat Singh. The first two candidates chosen to contest the 2012 Punjab Assembly elections were the nephews of martyrs Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev. They were given the choice to contest from any constituency, including Manpreet Badal’s Gidderbaha.
Punjab goes to polls sometime in February 2012. That gives Manpreet Badal less than a year to make an impression. “Voters know that I profess short-term pain for long-term gain; so I expect to get strong support,” says Manpreet Badal. S S Gill, economist and director general, Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development, agrees, “Manpreet Badal’s vision makes sense. A state has the right to give subsidy only if it is generating income.” But political analyst Pramod Kumar, director of the Institute for Development and Communication, Chandigarh, doesn’t think Punjab has a “third front” option in Manpreet Badal. “He can impress the educated middle class, but he does not have any appeal among those living on the margins. But he can certainly skew the political equation for the Congress and SAD.”
Aware of the odds, Manpreet Badal is reaching out to the people with an openness Punjab has rarely seen. His website makes him accessible to anybody and everybody. Open letters to farmers and the youth speak of a grassroots approach. Back in his constituency, Gidderbaha, which is touted as mini-Chandigarh for being as clean and green, small initiatives are making a big difference. Like the ROKO cancer project, to arrest the incidents of cancer in this belt, and E Health Points, that offer tele-medical services.
Manpreet Badal, who likes to spend his leisure time reading, has hit the road with a vengeance. Will his ability to connect with rural Punjab and target its most basic problems — unemployment, drug abuse, migration — bring the change the state is looking for?
