Leader of Opposition in Punjab Vidhan Sabha Partap Singh Bajwa has set the cat among the pigeons by repeatedly claiming that about 32 MLAs and ministers of the ruling party are ready to join the Congress.
He has also been maintaining that Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann was in regular touch with the Bharatiya Janata Party and equates him with Eknath Shinde of Maharashtra, who deserted the Shiv Sena to join hands with the BJP to become the Chief Minister. Bajwa often says, Mann will prove to be the Eknath Shinde of Punjab.
It is not for the first time that Bajwa has made such claims. Quite expectedly, the AAP has dismissed Bajwa’s claims repeatedly. AAP state president Aman Arora retorted that Bajwa’s berth in the BJP was already reserved.
The AAP has 94 legislators in a house of 117. Even if 32 legislators desert - which though looks highly improbable right now - it will still have 62 members, three more than absolute majority required for the government to survive.
But why would the AAP legislators need to desert the party, knowing well that they cannot bring down the government. And even if the government falls, what else would they expect from a “new government”?
But the CLP leader appears to be playing mind games with the beleaguered ruling party, which is still reeling under the shock of its Delhi defeat. Party supremo Arvind Kejriwal also showed undue haste in summoning all the AAP legislators from Punjab on the next day of losing elections in Delhi. This provided fodder for the rumour mills sparking off a lot of speculations.
There is indeed an unease among a section of the AAP legislators who have been feeling completely ignored. The assurance from Kejriwal that they can directly contact him in case they feel that they were not being heard, has come a bit too late. Still if the MLAs’ problems are heard, the ruling party can redeem itself to some degree.
Opposition criticism apart, the AAP’s own poster boy, Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, a former IPS officer and legislator from Amritsar, is one of the worst critics of his own party’s government in the state. He has been saying it on record that in case the elections were held in Punjab right away, the AAP will not win even a single assembly seat. There are definitely many more such legislators who are disillusioned with the party but are not prepared to speak like Singh.
The AAP may be dismissive of Bajwa’s claims, but the party has alerted itself against any such possibility, which right now, sounds to be quite remote. A large number of the AAP legislators are from the Congress only. Even AAP state president Aman Arora belonged to a “dyed in wool” Congress family before joining the AAP. Right now, he is the most prominent face of the party, after Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann.
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It is a fact that Bajwa has managed to set the narrative, putting the AAP on the defensive. He has also managed to deflect public attention from the intra-party rumblings within the state Congress. He has successfully managed to shift focus on the AAP.
Last but not the least, Bajwa has also succeeded in emerging as the most powerful and effective voice of the party in the state. While on the one hand, he has put the government on defensive with his claims of possible defections, on the other hand, he has also checkmated his rivals within the party.
While the state elections are still two more years away, the race for the chief ministerial position has already started within the Congress under the misplaced assumption that the party was set to form the government. While so many leaders have already thrown their hats in the ring, Bajwa has managed to take the lead.
Irrespective of Bajwa’s claims and assertions about AAP MLAs being in touch with the Congress, the ruling AAP will certainly need a paradigm shift in its policy and approach in managing the government as well as the party rank and file.
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