The second headline quoted Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal describing Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the country’s ‘greatest leader of the country’ and a ‘Sardar.’ He made the flattering remarks during his last week’s visit to the state.

Sukhbir is not the first politician in India to target media for ‘publishing baseless reports’ exposing rulers self-patting claims or their faulty functioning. Whenever ruling leaders feel embarrassed by media’s criticism they describe their reports as ‘baseless’ or ‘biased’ or say they had been misquoted.

Sukhbir Singh has been claiming that the state’s financial health is sound and the government has never defaulted in paying salaries to its employees or pensions to its retired employee. A day after Sukhbir’s claim that the state was ‘not defaulting in payment of salaries and pensions’, the media reported that a large number of employees and pensioners had not received their dues for several days. The reports also said that lakhs of old-age pensioners, widows, disabled and dependent children had not received since June their monthly token amounts totaling nearly Rs.150 crore. Serving of mid-day meal to schoolchildren was disrupted as expenditure was stopped for payment of salaries to teachers. ‘Dal’ under the coalition government’s vote-catching atta-dal scheme was not supplied to the eligible poor for seven months.

Responding to the criticism that Punjab’s debt-burden has touched rupees one lakh crore, Sukhbir said that ‘without debt no country, government or business house can survive’. He is not wrong. But if the debt money is spent on paying salaries, pensions or meeting the government’s day-to-day expenditure and not for productive purposes, it will lead to bankruptcy. Punjab is facing such a situation.

The ruling leadership lured voters by offering huge freebies and subsidies, which added to the financial crunch. It did not want to mobilize additional resources through taxes for fear of annoying the respective rural and urban vote banks of the ruling Akali Dal and BJP allies. It adopted the strategy of blaming the Centre for not helping the state to overcome its financial problems the coalition had itself created.

It will not be irrelevant to quote the state finance minister Parminder Singh Dhinds who said ‘the coalition dharma in the ruling Akali Dal-BJP combine was coming in the way of enlarging the ambit of tax structure and plugging large-scale tax evasion in the state’. Without naming BJP, he said ‘to generate more revenue lots of things were decided but withdrawn because of the coalition dharma’.

The prevailing situation reminds one what chief minister’s estranged nephew Manpreet Singh Badal had said when he was finance minister. He had pressed for rationalizing the huge subsidies (which in the case of free power to the farm sector alone is Re.5800 crore per year) and for mobilizing additional resources to help overcome Punjab’s acute financial problems. He did not want Punjab to go to the Centre with a begging bowl. His stand, besides the threat of his possible emergence as a challenger to Sukhbir Singh Badal’s anticipated elevation as chief minister after Parkash Singh Badal, led to his expulsion from the ministry and the party.

What Manpreet had predicted is proving correct. The ruling leadership is going to the centre with a begging bowl though under the cover of ‘centre is discriminating against Punjab’ slogan.

The biggest surprise of the week was the remark of the otherwise sober and balanced chief minister Parkash Singh Badal that Narendera Modi was the ‘country’s greatest leader’. What could be the reasons for Badal who is considered as the country’s one of the most tallest and respected leaders, for making such flattering remarks about Modi whose stature and status are many notches lower than that of Badal’s?

No doubt, Modi has earned praise for providing good governance and making Gujarat as India’s one of the most developed states. Corporate India, which has received lucrative concessions for setting up industrial units in the state, has largely contributed to creating the hype about Gujarat’s development.

However, Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s claim that Haryana is far ahead of the Modi-ruled Gujarat as an investment destination having a highest per capita income state cannot be ignored. He has quoted data to support his claim.

Badal’s remarks about Modi are surprising for many reasons. A strong defender of minorities rights, his remarks about Modi will be considered as an anti-minorities statement by the Muslims several hundreds of whom were killed during the 2002 riots in the Modi-ruled Gujarat.

There could be two possible purposes behind Badal making flattering remarks about Modi: Hoping that if Modi becomes Prime Minister, he would bail Punjab out of its financial mess; Second and more important factor is that Badal may perhaps be preparing the ground for moving to the Centre as Deputy Prime Minister. This is what his friend Devi Lal did. He had moved to the Centre to become Deputy Prime Minister vacating Haryana chief minister’s chair for his favourite son Om Parkash Chautala. Badal will also like to vacate the chief minister’s chair for formally elevating his Deputy Chief Minister son Sukhbir Singh Badal as chief minister.

No doubt, poor governance record and mega scams have tainted the UPA government’s image raising BJP-led NDA’s hopes of coming to power in 2014 with Modi as its prime minister. But one should not forget what happened in 2004. Then NDA’s ‘India Shining’ slogan had made it look certain that it would come back to power. But the electorate denied its wish and voted UPA to power.

In Punjab also the Akali Dal-BJP alliance returned to power in 2012 despite the strong anti-incumbency sentiment prevailing against it had made the Congress’s coming to power as a foregone conclusion.

One will have to watch the impact the UPA government’s social welfare measures like food security and direct cash transfer measures will have on the electorate. Besides, which of the two combines –UPA or NDA- is able to attract larger number of regional allies will also influence the 2014 polls outcome.

Will the wishes of Parkash Singh Badal be fulfilled in the backdrop of the above scenario? (IPA Service)