Four missteps that put Bhagwant Mann government in the dock as it completes four months

Chandigarh: On July 16, Bhagwant Mann-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government will complete four months in Punjab.

Winning 92 out of 117 seats, AAP’s performance in the Punjab assembly election was historic.

Frustrated with the mainstream political parties, Punjabi voters gave a massive mandate to AAP to revive the state’s fortunes.

The increase in budget outlay for education and health, the buyback scheme for Moong to push crop diversification and the intent to fight corruption were among notable moves of the Mann government.

It also implemented a free electricity scheme of up to 300 units per month from July 1, one of its many pre-poll promises.

But owing to several missteps, word has gone out that Mann is not in the grip of his government.

From blunders on law and order to the Moosewala killing, he has appeared to have fallen short of people’s expectations.

His flip-flop on the textile park near Mattewara forest and recent demand for a separate assembly building in Chandigarh on the lines of the Haryana government shocked many.

Mann was also criticised for using an already depleted state exchequer for running media advertising campaigns worth crores in states where his party is eyeing to expand. As per RTI information, the Mann government spent a whopping Rs 37 crores between March and May on media advertisements beyond the state.

The state also, reportedly, paid the bill for Mann’s joint political campaigns with Delhi Chief Minister and AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal in poll-bound Himachal and Gujarat.

The biggest and foremost charge that Mann is facing is that he is being remote-controlled from Delhi when the mandate was clearly for him to be a strong chief minister of the state and work for Punjab rather than the political interest of his party.

Monday’s (July 11) appointment of Kejriwal’s close aide and party Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha as chairman of the advisory committee, who, as per the official statement, will shoulder the responsibility of overseeing the implementation of pro-people initiatives of the AAP government in Punjab, was seen as another attempt of Delhi’s unbridled influence over Punjab chief minister’s office. The opposition has already tagged him a ‘de-facto’ CM.

A general perception hit the ground that the party’s recent parliamentary by-election defeat in the chief minister’s own bastion in Sangrur was a result of Mann’s eroding popularity and governance issues, rather than the popularity of the winning candidate and a Sikh hardliner Simranjit Singh Mann of SAD (Amritsar).

Here are four glaring missteps that put the Mann government in a tight spot as it completes four months in Punjab this week.

Moosewala murder 

Delhi police recently claimed that the pruning of singer Sidhu Moosewala’s security was a major factor in his killing.

This came after the purported phone conversation between Moosewala’s shooters and one of the masterminds Goldy Brar, who took the responsibility for Singer’s murder on behalf of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, surfaced.

A May 28 tweet from AAP’s main Twitter handle needed to be mentioned here.

In this, the party flaunted the decision of the Mann government about clipping the security of 424 dignitaries in Punjab, claiming to be a major crackdown on VIP culture.

One of the names prominently mentioned in the tweet was Moosewala. Soon, the entire list of these dignitaries also went public. But in reality, the curtailment of the security of these dignitaries was temporary.

It was done to arrange additional security forces in wake of the anniversary of operation blue star on June 6.

A day after the anniversary, security cover was restored to all dignitaries but Moosewala was not alive then.

Opposition is already in attacking mode after the Delhi police’s claims.

Shiromani Akali Dal’s senior leader Daljeet Cheema said in a tweet that he had raised the issue of withdrawal of security and the danger of publishing it in the second week of May.

Now the investigators had established that the attackers chose to attack Moosewala after his security was curtailed and it was publicised, Cheema added.

“So justice demands that responsibility must be fixed as to who ordered the withdrawal of security in an unprofessional way and who the conspirators were behind the conspiracy to publicise it,” he added.

State’s faux pass was visible in the post-murder investigation too. On the day of Moosewala’s murder, state police claimed that his murder was a result of inter-gang rivalry, hinting that Moosewala was associated with Bishnoi’s rival gang. The police also claimed that Moosewala’s manager was involved in the murder of Bishnoi’s close aide. Moosewala even helped him flee the country as well. His murder appeared to be a retaliation to that incident.   

The next day, however, the Mann government issued a press release, quoting Punjab DGP that he, on no occasion, ever said that Moosewala was a gangster or affiliated with gangsters.

Meanwhile, as per a Tribune report, 49 people directly or indirectly involved in Moosewala’s murder have been arrested so far. Here too, Punjab police failed to nab the main shooters involved in his killing, as it was Delhi police, which took the lead. 

The Mattewara Forest

By announcing the cancellation of the textile park project near Mattewara forest and Sutlej River in Ludhiana on Monday (July 11), Bhagwant Mann has sent a message that he is not rigid in reversing the wrong decisions of his government.

But Mann’s decision to revive the project in the first place came as a rude shock for people who saw their future in him three months ago.

They were disappointed that the man who spoke at length on saving Punjab and even opposed the project when he was in opposition, went ahead reviving the project, which his predecessor in Congress government had mooted amid public opposition in 2020.

Opposition targeted him for his ‘double speak’ while members of civil society started a campaign to oppose Mann’s move, which resulted in massive public protest against the project on Sunday, July 10.

More than 10,000 people reached the project site and demanded in one voice to cancel the project.

They were even ready to hold a permanent dharna to save the state’s already dwindled ecology.

The areas in Punjab are already tagged as cancer belts due to contamination of the state's water resources.

While his party hailed him as a statesman after his announcement to scrap the project, his change of heart had its reason.

First, several party MLAs were not in favour of this project. Even Punjab assembly speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan wrote to Mann to reconsider the project.

Second, there was a huge social media campaign against the party on this project. This worried the Mann government of a possible morcha against his government, something the party can’t afford at this stage. It is projecting its key decisions in Punjab including free electricity to catch voters in poll-bound Himachal and Gujarat.

The public morcha in Punjab would have taken a toll on its plan to expand beyond Punjab and Delhi.

Law and Order

Last week, the government named senior IPS officer Gaurav Yadav as officiating state police chief after incumbent DGP VK Bhawra stepped down and made himself available for central deputation.

The change at the top came after the Mann government faced intense fire from all quarters over the worsening law and order situation.

The Mann government was caught napping when a major communal clash broke out between groups of different religions in Patiala in April, injuring over a dozen people.

The incident was completely avoidable as the continuous build-up between groups involved in clashes was in public.

For instance, Gurpatwant Singh Pannu of Sikhs for Justice, a radical outfit, had given a call two weeks in advance to commemorate Khalistan Foundation Day on April 29 and to hoist Khalistan flags at important places in Punjab.

To counter this, members of some Hindu organisations in Patiala had planned to take out a procession in Patiala city. There was no precautionary action on any of these groups until the matter went out of hand as both the groups clashed on April 29. The police had to fire many rounds in the air to disperse the crowd.

It was not a lone setback for AAP. From the Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) attack on Punjab intelligence headquarters in Mohali on May 9 to several killings linked to inter-gang rivalry besides unabated deaths due to drug overdose, Mann's government came under severe criticism. 

These incidents are too believed to have caused the AAP dearly in Sangrur by-election where party candidate lost to Sikh hardliner and proponent of Khalistan, Simranjit Singh Mann of SAD (Amritsar). 

A former batchmate of Kejriwal, Yadav’s appointment is tipped to be a damage control exercise.  

But Simranjit Singh Mann’s victory poses a new challenge for the AAP government, given that he has been a strong proponent of Khalistan, a demand for a separate Sikh sovereign state. 

Kejriwal's excessive control

AAP got off on the wrong foot within a fortnight of winning Punjab when it chose ‘outsiders’ and businessmen as the party’s Rajya Sabha nominees. 

Then, Kejriwal summoning meetings of Punjab’s top bureaucrats in April strengthened the opposition's accusations that Mann was not in full charge of his government in Punjab.

In politics, the public often observes through gestures of their leaders. Earlier in May, farmers of Punjab marched towards Chandigarh over the Mann government’s decision to delay the paddy transplantation.

Farmers, who were stopped on Chandigarh-Mohali borders, were called for a meeting with CM Mann on the afternoon of May 17.

Mann however suddenly left for Delhi instead of holding scheduled meetings with farmers.

Upon his return from Delhi on the same evening, his comments that the agitation called by farmers was unwarranted and undesirable further angered the farmers' bodies. Next day, Mann had a tough time convincing them to end their protest.

Many believed Mann dashing to the national capital at the drop of a hat for frequent meetings with his party boss appeared to have palpable disillusionment among Punjabis, which was reflected in the party's defeat in the by-election on a seat that Mann himself was occupying since 2014.

The AAP hoped that its populist announcements – free electricity, anti-corruption helpline – would level out any disaffection among voters. But political observers said that these antics did not work if the Sangrur result is any indication.

The March verdict of Punjab assembly polls had a clear mandate for Mann to work for Punjab, not for the political interest of his party, which he failed to prevent like the leaders of traditional parties.

It now remains to be seen how the public reacts to Raghav Chadha being appointed as a chairman of the advisory committee since it has given another opportunity to AAP’s opponents to target Mann as ‘rubber stamp’ CM.