Punjab, Goa go to polls today

Poll issues relate to problem of drug addiction in Punjab

Electorates in Punjab and Goa will vote on Saturday to elect their new legislative assemblies. Both states have largely had bipolar elections in the recent past between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies, but are set for a multi-cornered one with the entry of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). 

Along with elections in the next few weeks to Manipur, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the results of the polls to these five states will be interpreted as a referendum on the Narendra Modi government’s demonetisation move. In Punjab, a Shiromani Akali Dal and BJP coalition government has served an unprecedented two terms. Before 2012, no government had been re-elected ever since the state was divided to create a separate state of Haryana in 1966. In this election, the contest is primarily three-cornered between a resurgent Congress, the Akali-BJP alliance and debutant AAP.

Saturday’s contest is also likely to be the last election for the two veterans of Punjab politics, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal of the Akali Dal and Amarinder Singh of the Congress.  While the 74-year-old Singh has said this would be his last election, the 89-year-old Badal has a successor in his son and current Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal.  The CM and Singh are fighting for the Lambi seat, a Badal family pocket borough. Singh, the Congress’ chief ministerial candidate, is also contesting from his pocket borough of Patiala, where the Akalis have fielded former army chief J J Singh. Former cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu, a former BJP Lok Sabha MP who recently joined the Congress, is the party’s candidate from the Amritsar East seat. Bhagwant Mann, AAP’s Lok Sabha MP from Sangrur, is contesting against Sukhbir Singh Badal in Jalalabad. Voting will also take place on Saturday for the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat, which fell vacant after Amarinder Singh resigned to protest against the Supreme Court’s order on the Sutlej-Yamuna Link Canal.

Poll issues relate to the problem of drug addiction in Punjab, joblessness and the alleged corruption of the Akali government. AAP, which won four of the 13 Lok Sabha seats in 2014, has found encouraging support among the electorate. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP has received good response in Goa as well. In an effort to beat the anti-incumbency against the Laxmikant Parsekar-led BJP government, the party has desisted from announcing its chief ministerial candidate. Union ministers have even indicated that Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar might return as chief minister of the state. 

BJP ally Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party walked out of the alliance and is now contesting as part of a three-party alliance, which also includes the Shiv Sena and rebel Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader Subhash Velingkar’s Goa Suraksha Manch.