Chandigarh: The sudden appearance of the late Rajiv Gandhi in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign speeches ahead of voting in Punjab is deliberate. It is based on BJP’s astute political understanding that neither Modi’s magic nor its anti-Pakistan rhetoric, through the Balakot air strikes, are likely to resonate with voters in the border state.
In the ongoing Lok Sabha election campaign, Modi had famously said that first-time voters should dedicate their votes to those who conducted the reprisal air strikes on Pakistan after the terror attack on CRPF personnel in Pulwama. But, now, ahead of elections in Punjab on 19 May, he wants to shift voters’ attention to the 1984 Sikh violence and Rajiv Gandhi.
The formidable foe in Punjab
In Punjab, with its 2.03 crore voters, Modi’s national security pitch is up against a formidable foe — Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, a former Army man and military historian who has not ceded the nationalism plank to the BJP like other Congress leaders.
Amarinder has been slamming Modi for trying to take personal credit for the Balakot air strikes, saying the prime minister had not done anything.
“Was he there in 1965, 1971 or Kargil? the chief minister asked at a recent campaign rally at Khatkar Kalan, pointing out that Indira Gandhi attributed the 1971 victory to the valour of the Army. It is what Modi should have done now, Amarinder said.
The chief minister also said that surgical strikes were just new jargon for the cross-border raids that have been happening for the last 70 years, adding that it was India’s Army and nobody’s personal possession.
Modi’s weak magic in Punjab
A combative Congress chief minister in the state also comes atop a weak Modi.
Even at the height of the Modi wave in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Punjab voted against the national mood. Four candidates of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won in Punjab, the only state in India to do so. The SAD-BJP alliance won five of the 13 seats and the Congress won four. Both the Congress and Akalis had lost major chunks of their vote share to AAP.
The BJP’s vote share in the state reduced from 10.1 per cent in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls to 8.7 in 2014. The BJP’s hold in the state worsened in the 2017 assembly polls, when out of its 23 candidates, only three won and the party’s vote share further reduced to 5.4 per cent. This was in spite of the high popularity that Modi was enjoying following the first surgical strike of September 2016. The BJP’s ally, SAD, won in only 15 of 94 seats it contested in the 117-member state assembly.
“Punjab is a border state and anything that sounds like warmongering is taken very seriously by the state’s population. It is Punjab that will face the first impact of a war with Pakistan,” said Ranbir Singh, a resident of Amritsar.
“Business will be affected, trade, normal life. And Punjabis know this. People here do not want war at any cost.”
After the Uri attack, the union home ministry had ordered the evacuation of villages in a 10-km belt along the Pakistan border. Thousands had to leave their homes in Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Tarn Taran, Ferozepur, Faridkot, Abohar and Fazilka. Schools and other institutions were shut down.
Anti-Pakistan rhetoric
A few years ago, an NDTV attitudes poll asked Indians if they wanted better ties with Pakistan. The results showed that the largest percentage of respondents who said yes were in Punjab.
Also read: Row over Sidhu in Pakistan exposes us as a nation of paranoid, ignorant, immature idiots
Also when Modi promises to “guard” the country against Pakistan in his speeches, Punjab has heard it all before. Amarinder, a hyper-nationalist in his own right, has also been belting strict warnings to Pakistan to behave itself and “not try its dirty games” in Punjab.
More importantly, analysts say that Punjabis do not look upon Pakistanis as foes.
“Punjab has a common culture with Pakistan and those who came from Pakistan following Partition are still nostalgic about what they left behind. Abusing Pakistan is not going to get anyone votes here,” said Chanchal Manohar Singh, chairman of the Promotion of Peace. “Instead if he (Modi) were to talk about peace with Pakistan, it might attract Punjabis to him.”
The BJP knows that the national security issue is not going to work in Punjab, and that is why Modi has shifted the focus to Rajiv Gandhi, said Dr Kanwalpreet Kaur, a Chandigarh-based political analyst. The Delhi Sikh riots, Modi believes, would be a more emotive issue in Punjab, he said.
“Punjabis generally cannot tolerate arrogant and authoritarian leaders. And with Modi the more arrogant he sounds in his campaign, the more disenchanted the Punjabi voters will be,” said Sukhjinder Randhawa, cabinet minister and a prominent Congress leader from Majha.
Also read: Answer to Modi’s Rajiv Gandhi challenge to Congress lies in Punjab’s 1985 elections
The Kartarpur corridor
The decision of the Imran Khan government to open the Kartarpur corridor, for Sikhs to visit one of their holiest shrines in Pakistan, has gone down very well with the people in Punjab.
“The corridor is a long-standing demand of the Sikhs of Punjab. Our efforts have been on since 2011 and finally, the prayers of Sikhs worked,” said Bhupinder Singh, the India in-charge of the Kartarpur Sahib Marg project envisaged by the United Sikh Mission.
“Congressman Navjot Singh Sidhu, credited with having taken it up with Pakistan, was the first one to be informed about it. For Sikhs in Punjab, it would be a historical journey.”
Bhupinder also lauded the Pakistan government for the project. “The government of India was sitting on the project for years,” he said. “It was only when India realised that Pakistan was about to go ahead and announce the corridor, Modi’s external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj jumped in and hurriedly said ‘ok’ to the project to make it look as if India took the initiative. Nothing can be farther from the truth.”
- The copy has been edited to correct the number of voters in Punjab, which is 2.03 crore. The error is regretted.
As a Punjabi dove who has never been to Punjab, just a stray thought. Happier to see Veer Zara than Border. If Pakistan is not an issue that creates electoral magic in Punjab – where memories of Partition may still linger – why should it work elsewhere in the country, outside the television studios. 2. PM Rajiv Gandhi was a decent man, notwithstanding the issue of Bofors which tore a gash through his administration. Like PM PVNR, he held the fort for five years. For the average Indian, neither man is really an emotive / polarising / striking figure. One cannot light a prairie fire blowing on these cold embers.
In Punjab, with its “209 crore voters” ? Voter figure is wrong.
What is happening? Where are 290 core voters in Punjab while India population is only 150 chores which includes non eligible population less than 18 years.
Stop bulshitting people with whom figures
Well, Krishna didn’t spare Shishupal and he is supposed to be a generous, benign GOD. Modi is just an ordinary human, and if he gets “Gandi naali ka keeda, gangu teli, pagal kutta, bhasmasur, bandar, virus, Dawood Ibrahim, Hitler, Gaddafi, Mussolini, Tuglaq, Natwarlal, badtameez nalayak beta, rabies bimari se peerit bandar, chooha, lahu purush, asatya ka saudagar, Ravan, saanp, bichhu, ganda admi, jahar bone wala, maut ka saudagar, most stupid PM, neech admi, person whose father’s identity was unknown, nikamma, unpadh, ganwar…”, he has all the right to give it back. Therefore, the press must stop treating Congress etc as holier than thou.
Who does not want a better relation with Pakistan? Everyone. At what cost, that is the question? Peace is not possible till Pakistan wrests one or more states of India. Modi has hit Pakistan and congress party where it hurts, their pride. Rajiv Gandhi is no more. Neither is there any evidence of corruption against Modi. Chowkidar chor is a catchy slogan, so is Rajiv Gandhi bhrastachari. What is good for gander must be sauce for goose.
If congress is so averse to war, why did it create Bangladesh,? Congress could have simply had a hands off policy. They had created the problem, took credit and now wants to play a peacenik.
Punjab is a border state and does not want war. No one wants a war. Does that mean someone will keep poking us and because we don’t war we should keep quiet?
Modi is not a person who will keep quiet keeping in mind diplomatic niceties. If you hit him, be it congress or Pakistan, be prepared to take one.
Excellent
What has Rajiv Gandhi to do with last five years of government in India? He died 30 years ago! By trying everything on earth to NOT talk about his 5-year misrule, and everything else under the sun, Narendra Modi is looking more and more ridiculous to some, and more and more pathetic to others. He clearly needs rest. Otherwise he may take very wrong decisions!