Punjab Election Results 2017: Congress makes the change after 10 years

The outcome of the 2017 Punjab Assembly elections was full of surprises. The three-cornered fight among the Congress, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party (SAD-BJP) alliance proved one-sided, with the Congress winning 77 seats of the 117 in the Assembly. AAP and its ally, the Lok Insaaf Party, got 20 seats whereas the ruling SAD-BJP managed to get 18. 

For the Congress, it is one of the best performances. The party had expected to win 45-50 seats before the announcement of the polls. Its leaders had admitted to a tough fight from debutant AAP, which was riding high on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s popularity and a strong anti-incumbency sentiment working against the SAD-BJP government. AAP was expecting to repeat the success of the Lok Sabha elections in Punjab in 2014, when it had won four parliamentary seats. It had led in 33 Assembly segments and was second in another six. It, however, failed to replicate the performance in the Assembly elections. Its votes share also plummeted drastically. In the Lok Sabha elections it had got 34 per cent votes whereas this time it was reduced to around 23 per cent, whereas the SAD vote share was 25 per cent. The Congress’ got 38 per cent.

“I think he (Kejriwal) is a summer storm. He came and he is gone. The AAP bubble had burst with their outright rejection by the Punjab voters,” Singh said in a press conference after the trends gave the Congress a clear victory. Singh said he would meet Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi shortly to discuss the likely members of his cabinet and whether former cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu be made deputy chief minister. He reiterated his poll promise of making Punjab drug-free in the next four weeks. “My other priorities would be health and education,” Singh said. Singh created more news by not giving much credit to poll strategist Prashant Kishor for the victory. “It is a win of the Congress workers. Kishor was there to make strategies, but it was the Congress workers who implemented them,” the chief ministerial candidate said. Kishor has been credited with successfully running Narendra Modi’s 2014 Lok Sabha campaign and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Assembly campaign last year.

Political experts say the results showed that the SAD-BJP alliance managed to save its face despite the strong anti-incumbency. “It showed that SAD was still popular among masses and people had benefited from their schemes. SAD suffered because of its unconstitutional appointment of people in charge of districts who wrongly wielded power and influence. AAP failed to capture the anti-incumbency votes and a chance to become a formidable force,” said Pramod Kumar, director of the Institute for Development and Communication at Chandigarh.

Experts said the voters didn’t buy the AAP idea of bringing “a change” in the state for various reasons. The foremost was that AAP lacked a credible regional face who could implement its poll promises. It mostly remained an outside party and its central leadership deputed to oversee the elections in Punjab got embroiled in allegations of corruption and sex scandals. AAP failed to build a strong cadre and alienated strong and influential leaders like Sucha Singh Chhottepur and Dharamvir Gandhi, AAP member of parliament from Patiala, just before the elections. 

Its other so-called senior leaders left the party mid-way after being denied the poll ticket. Most of its candidates were unpopular among voters. Its star campaigners including Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann and Jarnail Singh too lost. Critics said another reason for the AAP defeat was its excessive focus on the Malwa region, which has the maximum (69) Assembly seats. Though AAP had fielded candidates in Majha (25 seats) and Doaba (23 seats), its leaders mostly campaigned in Malwa. AAP also peaked before much before the elections and could not re-build its momentum.

“We were hoping to form the government in Punjab. We are disappointed with the result,” AAP leader Ashutosh said. AAP, however, is taking solace in the fact that it has made a mark on his debut and its ignorance would be a political peril in the future.