A FLYOVER INTO PUNJAB

High sensitivity around identity issues, the spectre of security, a fragmented and fluid political canvas...will all of that converge to the BJP's advantage?

- ANILESH S. MAHAJAN

That much-televised blockade on the flyover in Ferozepur, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi's convoy was stuck for about 20 minutes on January 5, was meant to symbolise an angry Punjab shutting its doors on the BJP. But paradoxically, that single act has the potential to turn into an "Open Sesame' moment for Modi's party-contesting as a dominant alliance partner in the state for the first time. The BJP's dramatic allegations of a conspiracy, even an assassination plot, may have slowly receded from the national front pages but issues of security and nationalism have a way of pressing buttons embedded deep in the psyche of this border state-and politics in the recent past, especially after the two sacrilege-related lynchings of mid-December, has created an atmosphere of high religious sensitivity that's exactly primed for this.

The PM's rally was meant to be a morale-booster for the BJP cadre. The saffronists were staring at a gloomy scenario on two key inter-related counts. They are without long-time ally Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), which parted ways in September 2020. The reason for that split gives us the second, more important, reason-the now-repealed farm laws, which had practically turned the whole Punjab countryside against the BJP. The 15-month-long farmers' agitation led by Jat Sikh-dominated farm unions on Delhi's borders ensured the contentious laws would be an emotionally charged poll plank that puts the BJP on the backfoot. That's the scenario they are seeking to alter now with a complex balancing act.