Majitha (Amritsar): In his maiden Lok Sabha election, union minister of state and former diplomat Hardeep Singh Puri attempted to tap his stint in the Narendra Modi government to project himself as a “readymade minister” who could work wonders for Amritsar.
“No one can say that I will become minister (in the new government). But I can say that I am already a minister,” he told a gathering in village Majitha Thursday, a day before the campaign for India’s 17th Lok Sabha election ended.
“And I will tell you what a readymade minister can do for you. An MP can only get a limited grant to the city but for a minister, the sky is the limit,” he added.
Puri, who serves as Union Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs in the Modi government, is the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party (SAD-BJP) candidate from Amritsar, where he is up against incumbent MP Gurjeet Aujla of the Congress.
The constituency is one of Punjab’s 13 Lok Sabha seats, all of which go to the polls in the seventh phase of the election Sunday.
“[BJP president] Amit Shah said he went campaigning in 300 constituencies and, wherever he went, the contestant would request him that he should be made a minister in the new government,” Puri said to the audience.
“But Amit Shah was told by Modiji that he is giving a readymade minister to Amritsar,” he added, evoking chants of “Bole So Nihaal”, the Sikh chant of triumph, from the audience.
‘A different world’
The soft-spoken Rajya Sabha member, 67, who is contesting his first election ever, has learnt the ropes fast.
“In the last 42 years, I have been caught up in a different world, which might appear suave and sophisticated but the rough and tumble there is as ruthless as it is in a Lok Sabha election,” he told ThePrint.
“I have a past, and sometimes one does not want to recall it, but it is quite easy for me to switch on and off. I have no difficulty on that score,” he added.
The campaign pitches
In his “switch on” mode during the campaign, everything was said. From the 1984 anti-Sikh riots to Operation Blue Star, Puri banked heavily on Sikh pride to counter the Congress.
“Hundreds of Sikhs were killed in Delhi, Kanpur and other places in India [in 1984]. We got nothing but hatred from the Congress,” he told the gathering at Majitha.
“Look what Sam Pitroda, the adviser to the Gandhi family, said,” he added, referring to Pitroda’s controversial remark — “Jo hua so hua (what happened, happened)” — about the 1984 riots.
“Thirty-five years have passed since the 1984 massacre, but the Congress did not allow the investigating agencies to work,” he said, “Now Modi government has constituted an SIT and is giving justice. All the culprits will soon be behind bars.”
Another recurring theme at his rallies was to recall the 2010 incident where Puri, then India’s envoy to the United Nations, was asked to remove his turban by US airport security officials in Houston, Texas.
Puri said he was well versed in the law on security checks, and reminded airport personnel that a new policy dictated they could not touch or check items of religious significance — that the passengers themselves were supposed to remove items such as turbans if required. As a result, Puri was allowed to pass.
“I was responsible for getting the new policy — that a Sikh can check his own pagri at the airport but security agencies are not allowed to do touch it — implemented,” he says.
‘No outsider’
Puri is unfazed by his opponents labelling him an outsider. “Amritsar is Guru di nagri, it is home to every Sikh,” he said at the Majitha rally.
“In 1919, my grandfather participated in the protest at Jallianwala Bagh. My father was among those who came in the last Frontier Mail from Pakistan in 1947. I have been coming to Amritsar since I was four years old,” he added, “I don’t look like an outsider either. Then, how can Aujla say I am an outsider? Does Rahul Gandhi belong to Amethi?”
Aiding Puri in his campaign is SAD leader and Punjab’s controversial former minister Bikram Singh Majithia, the brother of Union minister Harsimrat Kaur.
Majithia is the MLA from Majitha, and Amritsar’s rural belt is his home ground. Unlike Puri, whose refined Punjabi speeches often elicit a tepid response from the crowd, Majithia knows what will work.
“Today, I brought minister saab on a motorcycle, I was scared all through. What if he falls off?” he said at Majitha, leaving the audience in splits. “I will have an FIR registered against me, to which there will be no cure. Minister saab is such a big man. We are lucky he is here with us,” he added.
“And this time don’t make the mistake you did last time. You made Arun Jaitley lose and made the Raja win,” he added, referring to Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, who won the 2014 election but vacated the seat after the 2017 assembly election.
“Now the Raja has taxed you in everything. In our time, you could at least get some kundis (illegal electricity connection), now these, too, have become impossible,” he added.
The urban outreach
In the city, Puri participated in health runs and meet locals in parks, with his old friends from Delhi chipping in.
Former diplomat K.C. Singh, along with former Punjab director general of police P.S. Gill and outgoing AAP MP from Fatehgarh Sahib, Harinder Singh Khalsa, who recently joined the Akalis, campaigned for Puri. They are all from the 1974 batch of the civil services.
“Amritsar is one of its kind,” Puri told ThePrint, “People are intelligent and most of them educated. They have strong views on everything. In Majitha in particular, dignity and ego is a very strong issue and you have to define an approach accordingly.”
Also read: Why BJP’s Amritsar candidate Hardeep Singh Puri should worry about his ‘outsider’ tag
But was he able to woo Amritsar? I have a feeling he may even lose his deposit