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Political Churning in Punjab before the Elections
The assembly elections are going to be held in Punjab in February 2022. All political parties are gearing up for it. The Congress party is facing internal conflicts, whereas the Akalis are making a new alliance with Bahujan Samaj Party after breaking their alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party due to the farmers’ agitation. The incumbent Congress government has failed to deliver in terms of its promises and development. Both the Akalis and the Congress will be heavily relying on their mass base. However, a big challenge has emerged in the form of the farmers’ agitation. The Aam Aadmi Party is still struggling with its agenda and organisational basis despite being the main opposition party. The standard parameters of prediction of an election result seem to be non-functional at this moment.
Each general election is a relatively autonomous event distantly connected with the previous one by five years. Experts tend to examine elections by referring to the previous election: a natural and common tendency to examine the present and foresee the future through the lens of the past. Psephology is an art of prediction through intuition with the help of a lot of data collected using many variables, which are central in making predictions regarding the outcome of an election. Thus, we have opinion surveys and exit polls. Prediction is a tricky business in the field of social sciences. The reason for this is simple. The object of study in social sciences is conscious actors who have choices, intentions, motives, and objectives as the subjective elements. By virtue of this subjectivity, social scientists are invariably aware of the slippery ground they are standing on with predictions. Nevertheless, psephologists tread into the most challenging path with a great degree of self-confidence that can be observed from their faces, expressions, and language on various television channels. However, after elections, the same experts explain why what they stated before counting of votes did not happen.
This paper examines the emerging political dynamics of Punjab in connection to the forthcoming election. My observations and analysis are based on the pre-poll activities of various parties in the state. At present, there is a lot of churning going on as political parties prepare for the upcoming election. There is media coverage of the way Navjot Singh Sidhu is conducting himself and the Congress High Command handled the conflict between him and the former chief minister, Amarinder Singh. They first made him the president of Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (Punjab PCC) and then asked the chief minister to resign. Simultaneously, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Sukhbir Singh Badal is clinching a pre-poll alliance with Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to ensure a formidable fight. The main opposition party in Punjab is the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). It is not lagging behind in the show either, as its leader, Arvind Kejriwal, has been making various announcements for different social and economic groups to initiate its party’s election campaign.
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