Loudspeakers fell silent as the month-long high-octane campaigning in Punjab ended on Friday evening for the 13 Lok Sabha seats in the State which goes to polls on Sunday.
Making a final pitch to woo voters on the last day of campaigning for seventh and the last phase of 2019 general elections which have all elements of a political soap opera, the State’s political parties and leaders went all out holding roadshows, addressing massive rallies, and meetings.
278 candidates, including 25 women, are in the fray.
Of 2.07 crore voters in Punjab, 1,09,50,735 are male, 98,29,916 female, 3,94,780 first-timers and 560 third gender. There are 1,10,264 divyang voters who would be provided pick-and-drop facility.
The campaigning witnessed acrimonious exchanges between the rivals — the Congress and the Akalis — over the issue of sacrilege and 1984 anti-Sikh riots, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) made allegations of horse-trading against the ruling Congress, with Bollywood superstars adding style and glamour in the poll campaigning.
For the first time in the Punjab’s political history, most of the constituencies are witnessing a four-cornered contest, involving the traditional rivals SAD-BJP combine and the Congress, besides the AAP and the fourth front under the banner of Punjab Democratic Alliance (PDA).
Prominent candidates in the fray include actor-turned-politician Sunny Deol, Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Union Minister Hardip Puri, SAD president Sukhbir Badal, Punjab Congress president Sunil Jakhar, AAP’s State unit president Bhagwant Mann, former Union Minister Preneet Kaur, besides several sitting MPs and legislators.
The campaign, which began on a sluggish note, mainly because of elections being held in the last phase, gained momentum in the last fortnight with national leaders drawing huge crowds at mega rallies and roadshows in the State.
It reached a crescendo in the past week, after the elections were held in Delhi and Haryana on May 12. The campaigning took its last lap with Prime Minister Narendra Modi holding a massive rally at Bathinda and Hoshiarpur, Congress national president Rahul Gandhi addressing rallies at Khanna, Hoshiarpur, and at Bargari in Faridkot, while his sister Priyanka Gandhi holding a rally at Bathinda and a roadshow in Gurdaspur.
Congress’ star campaigner and State Cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, who remained absent from the entire poll campaigning period in the State while addressing over 100 rallies and Press conferences across other States that harmed his vocal cords, joined the canvassing with just three days left to the polls at Priyanka’s rally.
From trying to strike a personal chord with the voters in parks at six in the morning to holding door-to-door campaigns till late night, the candidates literally sweated it out in the oppressive heat as mercury crossed the 40 degrees Celsius mark.
While the SAD-BJP’s campaign revolved around the party’s high-pitched nationalism narrative, Modi’s popularity and Centre’s decisions to open Kartarpur Sahib corridor and conviction in 1984 riot cases, the Congress hard sell its minimum income guarantee scheme, NYAY, besides targeting the SAD, especially the Badals on the issue sacrilege and related police firing incidents.
The AAP, on the other hand, tried to make its presence felt, with an apparent attempt to improve its previous performance where it bagged four seats in its first electoral hustings. Hit by severe infighting and exodus of prominent leaders in these five years, the AAP is struggling in most of the constituencies with only State party chief Mann holding his ground comparatively well.
Punjab Democratic Alliance (PDA) - a conglomeration of six political outfits and splinter groups comprising BSP, Bains Brothers’ Lok Insaaf Party, Sukhpal Singh Khaira’s Punjab Ekta Party, Dr Dharamvir Gandhi’s Nawan Punjab Party, CPI, and Revolutionary Marxist Party of India (RMPI) - is said to be doing well in number of segments including Patiala, Khadoor Sahib, Bathinda, Ludhiana, among others.
For Congress, 2019 polls would be popularity test, while for SAD-BJP, it is a chance to revive its fortunes in the state after resounding defeat in 2017 elections.
