Punjab’s Sangrur constituency has a distinct reputation of always challenging the establishment, and flowing against the tide. It is a place where the people proudly say, “We do not vote to ensure someone’s victory. “We vote to ensure defeat,” is the refrain here.
The people here have a folk song on their lips to explain their mood: “‘Saadda ki kasoor, saadda zila Sangrur’ (We are never at fault for we belong to district Sangrur).”
This election, the Sangrur Lok Sabha constituency is witnessing a multi-cornered poll battle. Sangrur’s reputation had stood the test of time even in the Lok Sabha by-poll of 2022 when the sitting Member of Parliament Bhagwant Mann had vacated the seat on becoming the Chief Minister of Punjab.
Merely three months after giving a landslide mandate to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) across the state, which included a victory in all the nine Assembly constituencies comprising the Sangrur Lok Sabha seat, the people stunned everyone by electing Simranjit Singh Mann of Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) as their Lok Sabha member. Ask anyone about that, and the people on the streets of Sangrur casually say, “That was a message for Bhagwant Mann that no one can take us for granted.”
Sangrur is known as the land of political resistance and movements. It has witnessed several people’s movements whether from the peasantry, the employees, the students or even the Dalits contesting their rights to the village common lands.
The area is also known to be the cradle of Punjabi writers whether it is the famous poets Sant Ram Udasi, Minder Pal Bhattal and Ravinder Bhattal, novelists Om Prakash Gaso, Ram Swarup Ankhi and Mitr Sain Meet. It was once the core of the Naxalite movement in Punjab.
Old timers relate that the famous revolutionary poet Avtar Singh Paash had an emotional connection with the town of Barnala. They recall that whenever he was crossing the place he would request the bus drivers to drop him at Barnala.
The present Lok Sabha contest is turning out to be yet another interesting battle. The Congress has fielded its firebrand leader and a legislator from Bholath in Doaba region Sukhpal Singh Khaira.
He is pitted against the Punjab sports minister Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer who has been fielded by the AAP. Meanwhile, Simranjit Singh Mann too is in the fray to defend his seat. The Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) has fielded Iqbal Singh Jhundan while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has put its stakes on Arvind Khanna who was elected twice to the state assembly on a Congress ticket in the past.
The constituency reflects some interesting socio-political and socio-economic phenomena at work. These hardly catch the media’s attention but are a landmine of research topics for academics and social experts. One has to interact with the people to understand these layers.
For example, this area had a reputation of witnessing the maximum farmer suicides in the state. But the people claim that the trend has buckled but not for something better. They point out that the race to shift abroad for a greener pasture is a factor behind it. This desperation of moving to the west that was earlier confined mainly to the Doaba region has now spread to Malwa as well.
“What makes matters worse is that the people are shelling out money to emigrate through the ‘Donkey channel’ (illegal migration). Those who fail to clear exams like IELTS or TOEFL adopt this route and shell out lakhs of rupees to the agents and are also duped quite often. In a village like mine where there are 100 families residing, at least 40 people have migrated through the Donkey channel in the recent past.
“Another thing of concern is that the people do not see anything wrong in going under debt for the purpose of going abroad. All this is a big question mark on the tall claims about employment by the governments, whether in the state or at the centre,” a local disclosed.
There is a considerable resentment against the government for failing to protect the interest of the local residents like the state of Himachal Pradesh when it comes to recruitments.
The people are also questioning the failure of the state government to deliver on promises made ahead of the last assembly election.
At the local level there is a lot of anger over the failure to deliver on the promise of a medical college in Sangrur. The project hangs fire. The people are also concerned over the pace of work with regards to the full-fledged functioning of a satellite centre of the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER).
There is also considerable resentment over the dismantling of the old healthcare system that has been replaced by the Aam Aadmi Clinics introduced by the current regime. “The employees are yet to get the benefit of the old pension scheme despite there being three notifications issued by the state government,” a government employee said.
Apart from the issues that the farmers share with their brethren across the country, the farmers in 27 villages in the Munak area of the area are agitated over there being no solution to the annual devastation caused by the Ghaggar river.
At the same time the common farmer and general consumers appreciate the state government giving free power for irrigation and domestic consumption. The women are appreciative of the free travel facility in the state run buses.
“The people here want tangible results for their issues. They are aware of their limited access and reach but vent out their feelings through the ballot. They are also wary of the political games that various parties play. For example, they are perplexed why Khaira who is a legislator from Doaba has been fielded from this seat in Malwa region.
“They are equally curious to know why one of the performing MP Vijay Inder Singla has been moved out by the Congress to Anandpur Sahib. Or for that matter why did the Akalis not field anyone from the family of veteran leader Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa,” Gurdeep Singh Lalli who works as a document writer in Sangrur town, said.
Khaira has the advantage of being a good and firebrand orator. He is popular with the youth for his aggressive posturing on issues and speaking his mind, though his views at times run the risk of being counterproductive as well.
He was behind bars for around four months last year in a drug case dating back to 2015 in which he claims to have been framed. He had accused Bhagwant Mann of unleashing vendetta against him to settle old scores.
Khaira bears the tag of an ‘outsider’ which can be counted as a disadvantage in the Sangrur contest. He was also one of the most vocal voices opposing a Congress alliance with AAP in Punjab.
His opponent Meet Hayer is the current sports minister of Punjab through whom Bhagwant Mann is fighting a proxy battle on this Lok Sabha seat that he had represented in both 2014 and 2019. Observers say that Hayer comes across as a ‘clean’ fellow who is seeking votes on the performance of the AAP government in Punjab.
Hayer has the advantage of the AAP having won all the nine assembly seats in the Sangrur Lok Sabha constituency in the 2022 Assembly polls. At the same time, he carries the burden of the anti-incumbency against the Bhagwant Mann government.
The Akali candidate Jhundan is a former independent MLA. He is seeking votes on the core issues of the Akali Dal that include the Panthic matters and also the release of Bandi Singhs. The silence of Dhindsa and his son Parminder Singh Dhindsa is proving to be a big dampener for him.
For both the BJP and the Akali candidates, the nonexistence of their alliance that came apart at the height of the farmers’ movement is proving to be a big disadvantage. The BJP candidate Khanna has a name for running a foundation involved in social work. But the farmers’ anger against his party puts him at a disadvantage.
“The farmers will be a major deciding factor against the BJP in the entire Punjab. At the same time the BJP has been going about putting up an organisational structure right about the village level,” Narayan Dutt who resides in Barnala and has been actively involved in the farmers’ movement, said.
Meanwhile, Simranjit Singh Mann continues to seek votes on his largely Sikh centric platform. He has a core support base in the villages. Whether he can garner votes outside this support base as he was able to in the 2022 by-poll remains to be seen.
His posters carry the pictures of slain Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala, self-styled preacher Amritpal Singh who is currently behind bars and is contesting from Khadoor Sahib constituency and Deep Sidhu, a controversial face often described as ‘Sikh activist’ who was killed in a car crash.
Sangrur is a seat that promises once again to generate enough matter for political observers. It remains to be seen what statement the voters make this time from here.