AAP’s development agenda falters in Punjab

BHAGWANT SINGH MANN took oath as the 17th Chief Minister of Punjab in Khatkar Kalan on March 16, 2022. His party got an unprecedented victory, riding on the promises it made to the people of Punjab during Assembly elections. Given the anti-incumbency against the faction-ridden Congress, declining SAD support, and anti-BJP sentiments of voters, winning the election was easy for the AAP. Now, as the government has completed more than three years in power, many people have started pointing out its failure to meet its promises.

The government had promised to address burning issues like agrarian distress, drug smuggling and addiction, unemployment, law and order, gangsterism, killings, extortions, corruption, sand mafia, sacrilege issues, accountability of bureaucracy and political interference in grassroots-level institutions. But no visible change has taken place under this regime.

AAP leaders are clearly growing anxious about the party’s fate in view of the public’s responses to the government functioning, particularly to its land pooling policy. The AAP’s poor performance in the 2024 General Elections and recent urban bodies elections is already troubling the party.

The general perception is that the party and the state government are being controlled by the Delhi Durbar, leaving limited space for local leadership. This has created uneasiness in the lower rungs of the party. It is brewing discontentment against the system among young legislators, party leaders and common folk.

During the 2022 Assembly elections, the AAP had promised to eliminate the serious structural challenges within a given time frame. But, more than three years later, nothing concrete has been achieved. The general perception is that either the leadership has backtracked due to political compulsions or lack of will, or fallen victim to the administrative machinery, or due to some other reasons known to the CM.

In spite of some good initiatives taken by the state government — particularly in its fights against the drug menace and corruption and its endeavours to improve the canal irrigation network and employment — these seem insufficient to keep the party politically relevant in the 2027 elections.

The fight against the drug mafia and scamsters putting some high-profile accused behind bars is a positive development. But the government is still far from finding structural solutions to the socio-economic challenges faced by the state. People are not very optimistic about the state machinery taking these cases to their logical end in the remaining tenure of this government.

The other important issue is the CM’s style of functioning. Some young leaders feel that it is one of the reasons for his declining popularity and that of the party. The inaccessibility of the CM to his MLAs and party workers as well as the MLAs to their voters is not an impression but a reality, and it is responsible for the loss of the party base.

Now, let’s discuss the issues that led Punjab voters to reject the Congress government, made the SAD and the BJP politically irrelevant in the 2022 Assembly elections and provided the AAP an opportunity to form the government.

The voters’ verdict in the 2022 elections was loud and clear. It clearly reflected their concerns and issues. As per the post-poll study conducted by Lokniti, the largest number of voters (43 per cent) had named development as their chief concern during elections.

Almost 26 per cent voters wanted to remove the Congress government and give a chance to the new party, ie the AAP. Unemployment was third in the list of most important issues, with 8 per cent voting in favour, followed by corruption, drug menace, etc. Religious and other issues were far behind.

The other important factor in this election was that the largest number of voters reposed their faith in the leadership of Bhagwant Mann. They felt he would fulfil the promises the party had made to the people of Punjab.

Significantly, in the 2017 Assembly elections, the voters’ top concerns were unemployment (20 per cent), development (18 per cent), and drug addiction (13 per cent), followed by sand, liquor and transport mafia, law and order and goondagardi of ruling party leaders. The issues of religion and corruption were insignificant then also as in 2022, as per the voters’post-poll survey.

Now, the question that arises is whether the Mann government has met the expectations of the people or if it will go the way of the SAD-BJP and the Congress, which lost power in the state in 2017 and 2022, respectively. Data shows that the AAP government has not come up to the expectations of the public.

The outcomes of the 2017 and 2022 elections were a lesson to both ruling parties that traditional agendas and working patterns were no longer workable; that governments would need to work on developmental goals. Fact is, social media has made people aware and politicians have been made answerable to the promises they make.

Good governance and development, along with assured economic opportunities, are the top demands of the people of Punjab. They can no longer be fooled by indefinite postponements of their most important concerns.

The age of parochial issues and schemes has faded. It is expected to be soon replaced by a brighter era, wherein people enjoy economic, political and social growth, and democracy is meaningfully executed by the real power-bearers, ie the people themselves.

AAP, once, also had well-meaning leaders who kept Punjab’s larger interest on top of their mind. But, over the years, such people have been shown the door. Worse, this process seems ongoing. An insider bitterly points out that “there is centralisation of power in the government and party and decentralisation of threat and insecurity at the lower levels."

If the party and the government continue to choose expediency over good governance, they are likely to face serious challenges in the coming days. These include financial mismanagement through universal freebies, weak party structure, confrontations with the Centre, induction of leaders from other parties, absence of a roadmap for development, wide publicity and distress among employees and pensioners as well as the general public.

AAP doesn’t have much time left to make amends if it has to win back the confidence of the people who once voted it to power.

Jagrup Singh Sekhon is ex-Professor, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar.

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