War Of The Sardars

Four Strong Contenders Are Pitched In A Multi-polar Electoral Battle. Who Will Win The Day—and Punjab?

- Raj Chengappa And Anilesh S. Mahajan In Punjab

It’s SPRING AND PUNJAB’S LANDSCAPE is a radiant tapestry of shimmer­ ing green wheat fields and blazing yellow mustard patches. For its peo­ ple, though, the winter of discontent lingers on. The flourishing frontier state has slid in recent years into a debilitating indebtedness, leaving much of its youth jobless and frustrated and its polity divided. The gra­ nary of India—Punjab produces one­fifth of India’s wheat and 12 per cent of the country’s rice—is grieving. Agriculture, the very thing that brought it so much prosperity, could be the kiss of death unless there is a radical shift in the existing pattern of high­intensity crop rotation be­ tween wheat and rice. Water tables have depleted to precipitous levels, as have crop productivity and income levels. The state is in the throes of a serious existential crisis and is struggling to rediscover its mojo.

On February 20, the 21 million voters of Punjab will have to choose carefully. The question before them is: who should lead them out of this dangerous quagmire? For the first time, they have a smorgasbord of parties and contestants to select from. In the past two decades, they have given decisive mandates to one or the other party to rule the state’s 117-seat-strong legislative assembly. But this time around, even political pundits are puzzled. Pramod Kumar, development economist and political analyst, says, “It’s actually 117 mini-elections, with each constituency an election by itself. No party seems to have any well-defined programme or distinct ideology, except freebies. They may sound different, but they don’t look different. For the first time in 50 years, I find it difficult to sense which way a Punjab election is headed.”