These developments also indicate that the dominant Akali leadership’s dictatorial and Emergency mindset, the signs of which had started emerging during the Akali-BJP’s 2007-2012 rule, is leading to confrontational politics between the ruling party and the main opposition Congress.

That the state’s ailing economy is virtually on the deathbed is apparent from the 2013-2014 budget. Newspapers have commented in detail about the regressive nature of the budget. It aims to win votes for the 2014 Parliament poll by offering doles rather than tackling the problems afflicting Punjab. Many of these doles represent the unfulfilled promises the ruling leadership had made in the 2012-2013 budget and in its election manifesto. They are proverbial old wine served in new bottles.

The less said the better about the state’s growth rate which is below that of the Centre’s and of most other states once considered laggards. Punjab’s revenue deficit is growing. Its debt has skyrocketed during the current Akali-BJP’s rule, which has been functioning on borrowings. By next yearend the state’s debt will cross Rupees one lakh crore.

Justifying Punjab’s heavy burden of loans, the ruling Akali leadership has claimed that the state’s debt is far below that of the debts of some other states. It has, however, forgotten that the states like UP, Bihar and West Bengal quoted to be heavily indebted are much larger in size and their population is also much larger than Punjab’s.

The state government has earned its biggest indictment from CAG. In its reports presented to the state Assembly last week, the CAG has come down heavily on the government’s failures projecting the state “teetering on financial bankruptcy in the background of a severely crippled economy.”

The most worrisome aspect of the state’s downslide is the worsening of the law and order. Sukhbir Singh, deputy chief minister who holds the Home portfolio recently quoting, what he said was the national crime data, claimed that Punjab had the least number of recorded crimes compared to the other states. He is perhaps unaware of what the former Punjab chief minister Pratap Singh Kairon once said when his opponents quoted the high number of criminal cases to substantiate their charge of deteriorated law and order situation in the state. Kairon had said that the rise in the criminal cases in Punjab showed that the police was readily registering FIRs of the complainants.

The situation under the present regime has been quite the opposite. The police generally either shoos away the complainants approaching it for getting FIR registered or register them only after pressure is mounted on them. The worst aspect of the law and order situation is that it is the Akali workers, particularly belonging to the Revenue Minister Bikram Singh Majithia-headed Youth Akali Dal who are involved in most cases. These include the serious case in which the Amritsar police officer who tried to save his daughter from harassment by the Youth Akali Dal goons was shot dead by one of them.

As had been stated in these columns some weeks ago, one of the major reasons for the miserable state of Punjab’s governance is the politicisation of the police and bureaucracy and criminalization of politics. Reports from the districts say that it is the writ of the Akali MLAs or defeated Akali candidates appointed by Sukhbir as the party’s “halqa” (constituency) in-charges that run in their police stations.

The most disturbing aspect of the goings-on is the virtual crippling of the functioning of the Assembly as a result of the boycott of the Congress in protest against suspension of its nine MLAs. The boycott was the result of the refusal of the ruling Akali leadership to revoke the suspension of the MLAs unless the leader of the opposition Sunil Jakhar apologized for the pandemonium created in the House by the Congress members the previous day. Jakhar later owned the responsibility for the happenings, which he said should not have happened. But the Akali leadership insisted that he must apologise. This led to the Congress members boycotting the House. They started holding mock sessions of the Assembly outside of its building.

The genesis of the problem lay in Jakhar’s bringing the Tarn Taran police assault victim and her father into the Congress Legislature Party Office in the Assembly complex without pass (why the entry pass was refused is a mystery). When the policemen in civilian clothes tried to forcibly evict them from the CLP office, some Congress members manhandled them. Later Congress MLAs protested in the House against the police “raiding” the CLP office which led to a pandemonium and the suspension of the nine Congress MLAs.

The confrontation between the ruling combine and the Congress in the Assembly is set to spread outside the House. Two developments indicate this. Pratap Singh Bajwa who on Saturday took over as PCC president declared to resolutely fight against the Akalis “excesses”. Rahul Gandhi has also urged the state leaders to mount an aggressive campaign to take on the SAD-BJP government. Bajwa has got full backing of the senior state Congress leaders including Capt. Amarinder Singh.

Secondly, if the reports from the districts are any indication, the demoralization among the grassroots Congress workers set by electoral defeats is showing signs of receding after Bajwa’s appointment as PCC chief.

Sukhbir won the electoral battles. But his attempts to secure political supremacy over Congress through confrontational politics are going to meet a matching response from the opposition party.

Punjab seems to be set to witness no-holds-barred confrontation between the ruling alliance and the Congress. (IPA Service)