FIELD TEST

With Punjab, the AAP has a foothold outside Delhi. Its governance there will determine its national footprint

- SONI MISHRA

Arvind Kejriwal seldom wore a turban during his numerous visits to Punjab in the past several months. Against the backdrop of anger over the emotive sacrilege issue, the Delhi chief minister kicked offhis party’s campaign in the state in June 2021 with a pledge to reduce electricity rates. It was a conscious effort to keep offhardcore Panthic issues and stick to the bread-and-butter matters of electricity, water and education that has held its government in Delhi in good stead.

In 2017, the AAP tried hard to shake offthe ‘outsider’ tag, but this time, that very fact became its USP; its track record in Delhi worked in its favour. If the word ‘change’ was the leitmotif this election, the AAP’s landslide victory, winning 92 of 117 seats, shows that the Punjabi voter has rejected the traditional parties, with stalwarts of the Congress like Navjot Singh Sidhu and Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and the Akali Dal’s Sukhbir Singh Badal and former chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh falling by the wayside. Trust has been reposed in a non-Punjabi party, and there is whole-hearted acceptance of a non-Punjabi leader.

The farmers’ protest over the three farm laws that were eventually withdrawn formed the backdrop of the election and became a channel for the expression of discontentment among people, cutting across castes and social strata. The AAP capitalised on this mood by building a strategy around it, which was encapsulated well in the pithy slogan—‘Ik Mauka AAP Nu, Ik Mauka Kejriwal Nu [A chance for AAP, a chance for Kejriwal]’.