The Badal Akali Dal’s Delhi success is the latest in the series of the party’s electoral victories since 2007 when the Akali-BJP alliance captured power ousting the Capt. Amarinder Singh-led Congress government. The alliance’s subsequent victories in some by-elections were climaxed by its unexpected win in the 2012 Assembly elections.

There cannot be two opinions that Chief Minister and party supreme Parkash Singh Badal’s mass base and his affable nature played an important role in his party’s electoral successes. But his son and party president Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh’s micro-level management and organizational skills were mainly responsible for these successes. It is another matter that these skills also reflected the authoritative, if not dictatorial, traits of Sukhbir’s personality.

What largely contributed to the Akali Dal’s electoral gains was Sukhbir’s use of businessman-like strategy of treating those who matter as purchasable commodity. Employing Haryana’s 1966-1968 infamous politics of defection in Punjab, he has been winning over a number of opponents or their supporters by using their weaknesses or offering them allurements of party or public offices. The latest example is of Joginderpal Jain, who had won Moga Assembly seat on Congress ticket, but was wooed by Sukhbir and nominated as Akali Dal’s candidate for the February 23 Moga by-election. Jain, a businessman, is facing cases of alleged economic offences. He was also convicted under Section 132, 135 of Customs Act.

It will be interesting to watch the role these tactics will play in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections whose outcome is usually determined more by factors which vary from those in the state Assembly elections.

The Economic Freedom of the States of India 2012 report highlights the damaging outcome of the Akali-BJP government’s poor and faulty governance. In brief, the report says that Punjab’s economy has slipped from sixth spot to twelfth in six years with its fiscal deficit of 3.8 percent of GDP for 2011-2012 and revenue deficit having increased from 1.8 percent in 2010-2011 to 2.75 percent in 2011-2012.

The report debunks reasons given by politicians to explain the sorry state of affairs in Punjab. It maintains that the huge power subsidy bill, fiscal crunch, tapering off of the Green Revolution, failures in agricultural marketing and inability to catch the services revolution have led to the decline in the state’s economy, “The state sharing its border with a hostile neighbour or terrorism causing a decline in the state’s economy were mere myths created by policy-makers to absolve themselves of responsibility of the state’s steady decline … not much effort is being put in to improve its condition.”

The state’s ground realities substantiate the report’s damning conclusions about the slippage not only of the state’s economy but also of the Akali-BJP’s government’s financial health. Reports are daily appearing in the media quoting instances of government’s failure to pay contractors dues forcing some of them to suspend work on development projects, non-payment of salaries to certain sections of the employees and curtailing the scope of its populist schemes like providing laptops to students and bicycles to girl students. The worst is the frequent delays in timely provision of the government’s much-touted populist subsidised atta-dal to the poor due to non-provision of funds.

All these developments need to be seen in the context of their likely implications for the 2014 elections and also for the Akali-BJP relations which have been increasingly becoming uncomfortable bedeviled by frequent eruption of irritants like the one on free power supply to farmers, inadequate funds for development of urban areas and not consulting BJP ministers on important issues.

Sukhbir has been trying to expand his party’s support level among Punjab’s urban population, the BJP’s main vote bank, He has achieved notable success as a number of party-nominated Hindu candidates are now members of the Akali Dal Legislative party. If the Akali Dal’s strategy to further widen the party’s base among the Hindus succeeds, it would change the complexion of Akali Dal being a party exclusively of Sikhs and would lend it the status of a party of all Punjabis. This, in turn, would reduce the Akali Dal’s dependence on the BJP in Punjab and also the latter’s already dented bargaining power with the Akali Dal.

Compulsions of power have been keeping the two parties together. The Akali Dal realizes that on the exclusive strength of its Sikh vote bank, it is virtually impossible for it to come to power in Punjab. On the other hand, compulsions of BJP’s central leadership to secure support of regional parties to capture power in Delhi has made it imperative for it to keep the Akali leadership in good humour. In the event of Akali Dal further expanding its base in the BJP’s urban bastions, it would further enhance its bargaining power with the central BJP leadership for getting a bigger share of the cake if the NDA comes to power after 2014 elections. It would, however, make the BJP virtually redundant in Punjab’s Akali-dominated – nay the Badal family dominated – power structure.

For watchers of Punjab politics, the happenings in the next 15 months would offer an interesting unfolding spectacle. (IPA Service)