Why Cong candidates want bigwigs to stay away from Punjab

On 25 April, Modi addressed as many as five rallies in different constituencies of Punjab. BJP candidates all over the state have been demanding that he visit their constituencies too to give a boost to their prospects in the elections. Contrast this with the Congress. No single big leader of the party has shown any urgency to campaign extensively in the state. No candidate has shown any urgency in requesting them to campaign in their constituencies either.

There seems to be no any takers for top Congress leaders like Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi or party poll campaign chief, Rahul Gandhi, within the party itself. Rahul is set to address rallies at Bathinda and Moga on the last day of campaign on 28 April. This will be Rahul Gandhi’s first and last election rally in the state during the present campaign.

Before Rahul Gandhi, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi was to address a rally in Hoshiarpur on 26 April in favour of the party candidate Mohinder Singh Kaypee, but her visit got cancelled at the last moment for some unknown reasons. She held a rally at Barnala in Punjab instead.

Totally missing from the campaign list is Manmohan Singh, who being a Sikh should have been a natural choice as a campaigner. But being a poor orator and carrying an image that has nosedived in the last few years he is not much of a choice. There were rumours that Congress candidates from Anandpur Sahib, Amritsar, Patiala, Jalandhar and Gurdaspur were not very keen on the visit of party’s big leaders. While the Congress termed the absence of the top leaders as a new poll strategy, the opponents were quick to point out that fearful of a poor performance in the state, the Congress leaders had decided to stay away from campaign.

It speaks a lot for the UPA government’s performance that despite remaining the prime minister of the country for ten years Manmohan Singh, who has a bungalow in Chandigarh, is not found good enough by the Congress leaders to campaign in his home state.

Why just Punjab, Manmohan Singh has not campaigned much in the rest of the country as well. Perhaps it was the stink and the storm raised against the PMO in Sanjay Baru’s much talked about book and the anti-incumbency factor against the UPA government that resulted in the party keeping Singh away from campaigns.

Rahul Gandhi, who is addressing rallies in every nook and corner of the country, is slated to come to Bathinda in Punjab only on the last day of the campaign in the state to support party candidate Manpreet Singh Badal, the estranged nephew of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. Priyanka Gandhi on the other hand has limited her campaign to just UP. According to Punjab Youth Congress president, Vikram Chaudhary, the party’s strategy was to reach out to the maximum number of people without making them to come to rallies. This move, according to Chaudhary, will save a lot of time, effort and money.

Co-convenor of the Congress party’s campaign committee, Jagmeet Brar said that the names of many party candidates were declared late and also for paucity of time, it had been decided to go ahead with campaign without the big party names. The opposition parties, however, think these are mere excuses the Congress is giving to save its face, otherwise who wouldn’t want the party bosses to boost their chances by being present during their campaigns.

There were reports that Captain Amarinder Singh, contesting elections from the prestigious Amritsar seat had written to Congress Party in charge, Punjab, Shakil Ahmad that since not much time had been left for the polling, he didn’t want the visit of the prime minister to take place because any such visit would have needed preparations on a large scale for 3-4 days due to safety and security reasons. Captain Amarinder had also asked Punjab Congress President Partap Singh Bajwa to concentrate on his Gurdaspur constituency, instead of campaigning in Amritsar.

Speaking to the Firstpost, Shakil Ahmad denied the report of Captain Amarinder’s missive to him on PM’s intended visit. “It is just that the Prime Minister was busy holding rallies in other parts of the country and the PMO was reluctant to allow the PM to visit Punjab at this juncture. As far as the big guns Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are concerned, you very well know that despite their tight schedule they visited Punjab once. Both of them had their own elections to oversee in Rai Bareilly and Amethi, besides most other parts of the country. As far as Partap Singh Bajwa was concerned, Shakil Ahmad said with a tough fight on hand in his own constituency, Bajwa had been kept busy in Gurdaspur and surrounding areas.

AAP’s spokesman Professor Manjit Singh said it was difficult to say why top Congress leaders rarely campaigned for their candidates in Punjab. “It is true that there is a strong anti-incumbency feeling both against SAD-BJP and the Congress in the state for different reasons. There is anger and resentment in the people against SAD and Congress for their misrule and corruption and perhaps this was the reason why the Congress big wigs chose to avoid coming to Punjab. Congress perhaps did not want to further antagonise the people,” he added.