Silver screen hit ‘Udta Punjab’ plays lucky charm for AAP

The controversial Bollywood film “Udta Punjab” was a big hit. The movie is playing a key-factor in the political plot of poll-bound Punjab.

The movie has come as godsend for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to target the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in the run-up to assembly elections slated early next year.

And AAP has not failed to spread out anti-incumbency against the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal  (SAD)- BJP front by playing the same trump card.

In what is likely to be an encouraging development for the Aam Aadmi Party supporters, a new survey has predicted Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s party to win nearly 100 seats in Punjab.

The survey conducted by HuffPost-CVoter in February shows a consolidation of favourable sentiment in favour of AAP from the same time last year.

As per the findings of the survey, AAP is likely to bag 94-100 out of the 117 seats in the Punjab Legislative Assembly, up from the 83-89 projection of the CVoter poll from April, 2015.

The latest CVoter-HuffPost poll has the Congress Party trailing in the second position with 8-14 seats in the Assembly, down from the 12-18 seats projection, last year.

The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-BJP alliance will come with just 6-12 seats, down from 13-19 seats last year, the survey claimed.

Interestingly, the survey claimed that 48 percent would vote for AAP if the election was held today.

In the 2012 State Assembly Election for Punjab, SAD won 56 seats followed by the Congress Party with 46 seats, and the BJP with 12 seats. 78 percent of respondents said that they wanted a change in government, indicating a huge wave of anti-incumbency.

According to the survey, AAP’s national convener Arvind Kejriwal is the most favoured face as chief ministerial candidate for Punjab, while Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh turns out to be the second favourite choice for the top job.

While, 59% respondents wanted Kejriwal to be declared the chief ministerial candidate for Punjab, 51% said they would choose Arvind Kejriwal over Amarinder Singh. They also chose him over deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal.

Among Kejriwal, Sukhbir Badal and Captain Amarinder for CM’s choice, 51% backed Kejriwal, 35% Amarinder and 7% Sukhbir.

Unemployment, drug abuse and corruption were identified as the three main problems of Punjab.

The AAP had entered the Punjab assembly poll arena with a bang in January this year when party leader and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal addressed a hugely successful rally on the occasion of Maghi Mela . However, over the past months, the party has been hunting hard to look for issues to corner the ruling SAD-BJP alliance in the state.

The AAP toyed with several issues but nothing could really be turned into a pan-Punjab subject of mass concern. The party spoke vociferously in favour of the farmers, highlighting agriculture distress leading to suicides.

Its bid to launch itself back into the slot of the hot favourites through a mega protest march to the chief minister’s residence last month on the issue of an alleged Rs 12,000 crore food grain scam also didn’t pay off.

Instead, its own wavering response on division of river waters with Haryana and the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal dulled the initial dazzle it had created.

For the Akalis, “Udta Punjab” could not have come at a worse time than this. Out of all the issues that total up to the overwhelming anti-incumbency that the SAD-BJP combine is facing, rampant drug abuse is at the top. In the past three years, the shift in public perception with respect to drug abuse has gone entirely against the SAD.

What was considered to be a matter of “personal choice” for the drug user and explained away as “bad luck” by the user’s family, has come to be a seen as a fault of the government, not just in terms of the police-peddler nexus, but also direct blame being shifted to politicians for their alleged facilitation of drug smugglers.

The AAP, aiming to emerge as a key challenger in the poll sweepstakes, has gone all out and hit the SAD where it hurts the most. Its leaders have even repeatedly accused state revenue minister Bikram Singh Majithia of “promoting” narcotics. Majithia had reacted by slapping criminal defamation cases against AAP leaders, including Kejriwal, and party state in-charge Sanjay Singh.

While the AAP has been aggressively harping on the drug issue, the Punjab Congress led by Captain Amarinder Singh, has given a virtual clean chit to the government on the issue.

However, the Malerkotla sacrilege incident has highlighted there is no chance for playing a caste chit. Punjab’s Muslim-dominated town of Malerkotla remained tense following violence over the alleged desecration of the Quran, last month.