Memes, Catchy Phrases and Quirky Slogans Set the Stage as Punjab Polls Inch Closer

Chandigarh: With less than a day to go for the February 20 polls, political parties in Punjab are pulling out all the stops.

From Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosting prominent Sikh leaders at his residence in Delhi on the last date of campaigning on Friday, February 18, to Congress’s Charanjit Singh Channi writing to the Centre to inquire into allegations against AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal supporting separatists during 2017 polls, the desperation is fully visible ahead of the crucial vote.

Even Congress leader Rahul Gandhi played along on this issue, seeking answers from Kejriwal on the allegations that his former colleague Kumar Vishwas raised in a media interview on Thursday, February 17.

If this was not enough, there was another row over Channi’s pejorative “UP, Bihar Ke Bhaiya” remark that he later clarified was used for Kejriwal.

Punjab’s poll narrative took a sharp turn with the political class creating a perception that traders are living in fear, or the presence of Sikh radicalism.

Notwithstanding the last-minute political theatrics, each political party has carefully developed its poll strategy that began early January with a social media fight and finally ended with big rallies, and roadshows.

The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) were early birds to hit the ground in the poll-bound state followed by Congress. The Bharatiya Janata Party-led front was the last one to pick up, even though their leaders still faced farmers’ wrath at many places. 

Interestingly, the belated action of the saffron party came right from the top.

Apart from addressing rallies in Jalandhar, Pathankot and Fazilka between February 14 and February 17, Prime Minister Narendra Modi released a picture of his meeting with Baba Gurvinder Singh Dhillion, chief of Radha Soami Satsang Dera, which has a sizeable number of followers in Punjab.

Then, Union home minister Amit Shah called upon Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Harpeet Singh and held a closed-door meeting.

The BJP-led Haryana government’s grant of furlough to rape and murder convict Gurmeet Ram Rahim of Dera Sacha Sauda – who also has a large follower base in Punjab’s Malwa region – too arrived at an opportune moment.

Political messaging of all parties too differed in tone and tenor in the past few weeks, even though the large narrative of ‘change’ has caught public frenzy in Punjab.

If AAP’s Kejriwal sought one chance from voters, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called AAP photocopy of Congress and said only BJP could take care of the border state.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi asked voters not to experiment and choose Congress again. On the other hand, SAD’s Parkash Singh Badal trained guns at both Congress and AAP, saying only their own party could take care of Punjab.

Catchy slogans and memes

Ever since the poll campaign hit Punjab, it is interesting to note how slogans of each of the political parties kept the public entertained.

Also read: Punjab Polls: Is Ex-AAP MP Dharamvira Gandhi Moving Towards Congress?

As the Election Commission banned physical rallies due to COVID-19 restrictions in the early phase of the election, political parties invested a lot of their time and energy into digital campaigning on social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, videos, live webcasting and even memes.

One slogan that caught public attention in this election was AAP’s ‘Ik Mauka AAP Nu’, asking voters in Punjab to vote for badlav (change).

In response to AAP’s poll slogan, SAD, Punjab’s oldest political party that turned 100 last year, started an online campaign, Punjab First and ‘10 saal vikas de, vishwas de’, reminding voters of the development works in Punjab under its previous regime.

Congress initially had a lacklustre online presence but once it selected Charanjit Singh Channi as its chief ministerial candidate, it positioned its narrative around ‘Congress Dubara’ (Congress again) and ‘Sadda Channi Sadda CM‘ (Our Channi our CM), focusing on 111 days of the Channi government.

Later it also released “Ghar Ghar challi gall, Channi karda masle hal” (There is a buzz in every household that Channi solves all problems) and ‘Congress Hi Aayegi’.

In response to all, the BJP-led front released the poll slogan ‘Nawan Punjab Bhajpa De Naal’ (New Punjab is with BJP).

Traditionally, the BJP in Punjab was a party of urban Hindus and was a junior partner of SAD for over 25 years before the passage of farm laws when both parties parted ways.

This time, it fielded Sikh candidates in over 25 seats as the party is contesting three times more seats than it used to contest here.

It has fielded candidates in 73 constituencies while Captain Amarinder’s Punjab Lok Congress and Sukhbir Dhindsa’s SAD (Sanyukt), a faction of Congress and Akali Dal, which is contesting the remaining 44 seats.

If slogans were not enough, the meme fight between political parties grooved the audience.

It all started with AAP’s meme, taking on Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu and chief minister Channi with the song ‘Dil da mamla hai dilbar’ in the background, soon after the announcement of its candidate Bhagwant Mann.

In response, Congress released a meme based on a superhero film in which Channi, Sidhu, Sunil Jakhar and Rahul Gandhi are shown as different characters.

Channi as Thor Odin rises high into the sky with the background voice of ‘Hun ni Bach de Tussi Kithe hai Kejriwal, Modi’ (You could not be saved now, where are Kejriwal and Modi.)

Meanwhile, the farmers’ party, Sanyukt Samaj Manch (SSM), has still not received the public’s acceptance on the ground.

Clash of identities, polarisation and popularism

After the year-long farmers’ protest, it was perceived that the focus of the election will be centred around these issues. However, the latest election has been confined to identity and caste politics.

This was sharpened after Congress fielded Channi, Punjab’s first Dalit chief minister, as its candidate, in an attempt to consolidate the Dalit vote bank in the state.

In response, AAP has been making repeated attempts to woo Punjabi Hindus by questioning Congress’s move to dump its Hindu leader Sunil Jakhar.

Also read: From Parody to Politics: The Journey of Bhagwant Mann, AAP’s CM Face in Punjab

Akali Dal, on the other hand, has smartly positioned itself as a party of both Hindus and Sikhs, yet it also remained stuck to its tried and tested Sikh ‘Panth’ politics in order to retain its peasantry vote bank.

The BJP has not yet declared its chief ministerial candidate and is seeking votes on Modi’s name.

Separately, gurus and saints heading different deras also became important after political leaders made beelines for them.

Channi spent a night and slept on the floor at Dera Sachkhand at Ballan near Jalandhar, giving out a message to its followers, especially Dalits. Before Modi shared a picture with the chief of Radha Soami Satsang, AAP co-convener of Punjab Raghav Chadha spent a day at the Dera headquarter in Beas. Dera Sacha Sauda of Sirsa in Haryana has a significant influence in the Malwa region suddenly came into the poll limelight after its convicted chief was released on furlough just ahead of polls. The region has 69 of the 117 seats in the assembly.

Only last month, candidates of different political parties took part at Salabatpura, which is the biggest centre of the dera in Bathinda district.

Amid all this, the parties did not even release poll manifestos on time.

While Congress released its vision document on the last day of the campaign on Friday, February 18, SAD released it only on February 15, five days before voting. BJP’s manifesto only came two days ago, February 13.

According to a political analyst, a delayed release of the poll manifestos suited parties, given their track record of governance and performance in previous regimes.

In BJP’s and SAD’s poll manifesto, the focus has been to entice voters with freebies like free electricity and cheap loans to youngsters.

On the other hand, Congress promised one lakh government jobs, Rs 1100 per month to women, and eight free cooking gas cylinders per year and promised to end liquor, and sand mafia.

Earlier AAP promised several guarantees, promising Rs 1,000 per month to every woman above 18 years of age, free electricity up to 300 units.

Also read: Shorn of Sad Alliance, BJP Is Cautiously Injecting Hindutva Narrative in Punjab

More candidates

In 2017, a total of 1,145 candidates were in the fray for 117 assembly seats. This time, a total of 1,304 candidates are in the contest that including two transgenders and 93 women, while 1,209 candidates are men.

Among all the candidates, nine candidates are 25 and six candidates are above 80, of which 94-year-old Parkash Singh Badal contesting from Lambi in Sri Muktsar Sahib is the oldest one.

There are a total of 21.4 million registered voters in the state for these elections, out of which 11.2 million are male, 10.2 million female while five million voters are above the age of 80.

The Election Commission has set up 24,740 polling stations in 14,684 locations, out of which 2,013 polling stations on 1,051 polling locations are identified as critical. All polling booths will be covered under webcasting on polling day.