Punjab election results 2022: 'Revenge' vote gets AAP landslide

Badals, Amarinder, Channi, and Sidhu lose as AAP's promises convince voters

The wave was unmistakable. Perhaps it’s the sheer magnitude that would have left even comedian turned politician and Punjab’s next chief minister Bhagwant Mann perplexed.  The Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) spectacular victory, the largest ever by any party since the re-organisation of the state in 1966, has come on the back of stellar performances in all three regions of Punjab – Doaba, Malwa and Majha. The Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) that have ruled the state between themselves since independence have suffered a huge blow in the state. AAP’s sweep has meant that for the second consecutive time, the Akalis would not even be the principal opposition party in the state.

“This massive win is more a rejection of the existing duopoly than it is of the acceptance of a new party in Punjab. People were frustrated with caste, corruption and nepotism and yearning for change for many years now. In 2017, Prashant Kishor’s event management skills managed to deny AAP that chance with it finishing behind the Congress. This time around, Kejriwal’s door to door and grassroot campaign made voters connect with AAP” said Pampa Mukherjee, professor of political science at Panjab University.

The declaration of Mann as the chief ministerial candidate at a critical time before the polls played a crucial role in the party’s acceptance among Punjab’s voters. Until Mann was made the CM face, AAP faced the dilemma of being perceived as an ‘outsider party’ which would govern the state remotely from Delhi.  That Mann’s much loved comic avatar before he became a parliamentarian endeared him to the masses was no secret. The opposition’s mockery of Mann’s alcoholism after being declared the CM face seemed to have boomeranged in a state that loves its tipple and was willing to overlook that flaw for his ‘son of the soil’ image.

Kejriwal’s ‘Delhi model’ hard sold to voters too struck a chord. With promises like paying Rs 1000 a month to every adult woman in the state, 300 units of free power to every household that would leave eight out of 10 households with no bills to pay each month, setting up of village clinics like the mohalla clinics of Delhi, revamping Punjab’s dilapidated government schools like what has been done in the capital and access to free hospital care, AAP’s promises already tested in Delhi convinced more voters than similar ones made by the traditional ruling parties of Punjab which were often accused of failing to deliver on their promises.

“The results bear the unmistakable stamp of the Punjabi khundak (revenge) vote. The voters wanted to teach the establishment a lesson for the dismal condition of the state under their watch for decades” said Ashutosh Kumar, political analyst.

Nothing exemplifies this Sikh khundak (revenge) better than the fact that all the tallest names in the state lost their election to novices fielded by the AAP. At the time of going to press, both Prakash Badal and his son Sukhbir Badal had lost their bastions of Lambi and Jalalabad to AAP candidates. If this was unthinkable, Amarinder Singh lost his pocket borough of Patiala. Navjot Sidhu was defeated from his safe constituency of Amritsar East. Sitting CM Charanjit Channi lost from both seats of Chamkaur Sahib and Bhadaur he was contesting. Another popular Congressman Manpreet Badal suffered a heavy defeat in Bhatinda Urban. In all these cases, the giant slayers were candidates of AAP.

While the results signal the first ever expansion in power of AAP outside Delhi, the results have deep ramifications for both the Akalis and the Congress. The Akalis efforts to leverage the farmer’s protest in their favour after severing ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) failed to yield any result. Meanwhile, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s active campaigning in the state after naming the Dalit Channi as the CM face seems to have come to naught. Navjot Sidhu’s trouble making in the midst of the campaign ensured that he was more of a Trojan for the Congress than the blessing in disguise the Gandhi siblings had hoped him to be.

“This is a turning point in the history of Punjab. The Akalis have nowhere to go except return to their Panthic agenda. Badal will have to take a call whether he should consolidate the party’s original ‘Punjab for Sikhs’ agenda or reach out to other communities. Politics in Punjab has been reshaped for ever after these results” said Pramod Kumar, director of Chandigarh based Institute for Development and Communication.

For Kejriwal & Co, this represents a turning point for both his party and his governance credentials. AAP is now on the cusp of being designated a national party. It has plans to expand into Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. The Himalayan state goes to the polls along with Gujarat later this year. One of the criteria to be designated a national party is to have four MPs from any state along with atleast six per cent of the votes in either a general or an assembly election in four states. AAP already has four MPs in the Lok Sabha. Although Mann will resign as an MP after taking over as Punjab’s CM, the party’s popularity in the state is likely to ensure that any by-election to fill that vacancy will be filled by it. In addition to storming to power in Punjab, AAP has bagged seven per cent of the votes in Goa. That leaves it with just one more state to bag a six per cent vote share to be considered for upgradation to a national party.

A more daunting challenge for Mann would be to fulfill the promises Kejriwal made in the run-up to the polls. While Delhi is a fiscally prudent state, Punjab is a financial mess. Many of the freebies announced by Kejriwal in the run-up to polls, on which the AAP rode to this unprecedented victory,  would cost loads of cash. The state’s debt in 2021-22 was estimated at Rs 2.82 trillion – an addition of Rs one trillion over the last five years as the erstwhile Amarinder Singh government showered loan waivers and other goodies on the state’s farmers. Punjab spends more than half its revenue receipts just servicing its debts every year. Industrial development on its fertile lands has remained a non-starter for years. Social problems created by a growing narco-economy and its ever-migrating youth population is changing the face of the state in myriad ways.

Kejriwal and Mann face the same dilemma that their predecessors did – have they promised Punjab’s electorate more than their ability to deliver? The next five years after this historic khundak mandate of the Punjabi voter could well answer that question for AAP.