Punjab - The Dark Horse Of Patiala

The Amarinder-BJP joint stock company is banking on a blend of symbolism and ground synergy in this ‘revenge’ election

- Anilesh S. Mahajan

ANGER, WELLING UP from a deep sense of humiliation, has turned into a steely determination to wipe out one party from the political map of Punjab. That party is the Congress, and the man involved is someone who has spent 27 years of his political life as a Congressman. If that suffices as a statement on the Grand Old Party, it also catches Amarinder Singh in a sunset moment he would have perhaps liked to visualise differently. A two-time chief minister, he’s now playing for narrower stakes—unless you count the healing of injured pride as a valid electoral objective. With a hockey stick-and-ball as the symbol of his new party, the Punjab Lok Congress (PLC), he has hit the astroturf as a junior alliance partner—contesting 37 seats against the BJP’s 65, accepting the reduced stature as a matter of exigency. Several of his loyalists have even joined the saffron party, reinforcing the image of Amarinder doing the playmaker’s job as a floater on the left wing, so to speak, for the national party.