With jhadu clean-sweeping Punjab, AAP’s test begins

The jhadu has made a clean sweep in Punjab, with the voters impressively consigning even the bigwigs of AAP’s rival parties to the bin. A whopping 92 of the 117 Assembly seats going to the AAP, the 2022 Punjab Assembly elections will be remembered for a number of historic firsts. Upsetting the traditional bipolar applecart between the Congress and the Akalis, the surge of the AAP in the run-up to the polls indicated a strong multi-polar fight. But few could gauge the strength of the wind that had begun blowing in the 2017 election when the fledgling AAP was catapulted to the main Opposition rank on its debut as well as the December 2021 MC poll in the state’s capital, Chandigarh, when it emerged as the single largest party. The 2022 decisive verdict establishes that the AAP was fully buoyant to consolidate its twin gains.

No doubt, the landslide mandate is as much a vote for the AAP’s manifesto of governance practices as it is a thumbs down to the sitting Congress government, which had romped to power with 77 seats the last time, and a further erosion of the trust in the regional satrap, the SAD. The people have shown their disgust at the party-hopping, scam-ridden and corruption-tainted leaders of both parties and their blatant bids to protect each other when in power. The internal bickering in the Congress and the high command’s handling of the leadership tussle did it in. Riddled with the transport and cable TV scams, the SAD too miserably failed to win back the people’s faith.

This mandate, thus, puts an onerous responsibility on the AAP. It is a clear message to and hope from the Arvind Kejriwal-Bhagwant Mann-Raghav Chadha trio of putting Punjab back on the track of prosperity. The vote is a loud cry for clean governance. The AAP is obligated to taking honest steps towards tackling the burning issues of drugs and unemployment and strive for bettering the state of education, healthcare and industry. Only then can it hope to play the national-level game it is now eyeing.

(Tribune, India)