Poll and bogey

This comes in the closing days of a campaign that has kept a heartening focus on issues of development. Punjab, which is witnessing its maiden multi-cornered contest after over a year-long farmers’ agitation, has seen a clamour for change on the ground, driven largely by accumulated governance deficits of past decades and callous disregard of bread and butter issues in a once prosperous state. The election campaign conducted amid Covid restrictions that imposed a ban on mammoth rallies, which were once the signature of Punjab elections, has been more conversational. Leaders, even those who never stepped out of their fortresses, were forced to attend small street corner meetings where issues closer to the ground replaced rhetoric. The Delhi model of development, promoted by Kejriwal, found frequent mention across a state that is forced to contend with the deepening problems of unemployment, drugs, price rise, and the yawning gaps in health and education infrastructure, forcing other parties to respond. This has resulted in manifestoes that promise world-class schools and hospitals at pocket-friendly rates and a push for agricultural diversification with minimum support price for fruits and vegetables. This is a welcome shift in terms of discourse in a state used to being wooed with freebies for the disprivileged and not-so-disprivileged. Even the emotive matter of sacrilege that had occupied the centrestage in the last elections, and threatened to do so again, was gently pushed aside as issues related to growth and well being took centrestage.

The mudslinging in the last few days will hopefully not be the last word in this election. No one in the state wants to be reminded of the dark decade of militancy, mercifully consigned to the annals of history. Punjab and its people are eager to solve their problems, and embrace the challenges of the future. They certainly do not want to be forced to look over their shoulders by politicians who seek to trade on spectres of fear and distrust in pursuit of votes.