By Satinder Bains*
Chandigarh: He will complete two years as Chief Minister of Punjab on March 16, 2024, but Bhagwant Mann still struggles to cope with the numerous problems he inherited from previous state governments. These problems range from regularisation of ad hoc and temporary employees and teachers to no recruitment in the last ten years, and pending pay commission arrears of over 2 lakh government employees, to name a few.
He took time to resolve some of the longstanding issues even as his priorities and challenges were different from his predecessors Captain Amarinder Singh and Parkash Singh Badal.
Mann focused on launching prosecutions against the corrupt ministers in previous governments but tended to ignore the corrupt practices of some of his cabinet colleagues. He drew his strength by exposing the misdeeds of previous governments and also used it as a cover-up for his own party men.
He has earned admirers and critics as well. He is admired for fighting corruption in the administration, for making efforts to eliminate the role of money and nepotism in government jobs, for trying to improve the health and education systems, for providing free power supply to the poor and for reviving sports activities.
His critics troll him for poor law and order, lack of transparency and outsider interference in the government work, continuing the VIP culture, taking up no clear stand on farmers’ agitation, and his inaction against Haryana police in violence against farmers.
The farmer’s issue has the potential to wipe out all the gains of Mann’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government. The Punjab Chief Minister was a mediator for talks between Punjab farmers and the Union Government and he was present in three of the four meetings held to discuss the demands of agitating farmers. However, he was being criticised when even a week after the death of a young farmer, Shubhkaran Singh, at the Khanauri border in firing by Haryana police, neither the post-mortem of the dead body of the deceased farmer was conducted nor a police FIR was registered. Now the post-mortem of the deceased farmer has been conducted after a week and finally, his cremation took place today after Punjab Police registered a murder case against unidentified persons.
The people of Punjab have given Bhagwant Mann their mandate for five years after they got frustrated by the previous governments of Congress and SAD-BJP. The beginning was not easy for the new Chief Minister, a first-generation politician, who had to swim against the tide to make his presence felt as an incumbent. His rise to the top post surprised and disheartened many. The opposition parties, Shiromany Akali Dal, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress Party started attacking him from day one when he took the oath of office. Cynical to the change, the opposition leaders sarcastically called him a “buffoon” and “clown”. The opposition didn’t even spare his family members and AAP’s 92 MLAs, ridiculing them as “cheap” and “strange” human beings.
A band of opposition leaders in Punjab was often found making sarcastic attacks on the comedian-turned-politician. To his credit, Mann did face it with grit and at times laughed them off. He was discredited as a non-serious player in politics but bullying and leg-pulling by opposition parties failed to deter him. He maintained his wit and earned many to his account. His journey, after all, was never a cakewalk right from a ‘best performer’ in the popular television show, “Laughter Challenge”, to becoming convener of the Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab, and then the Chief Minister of the state. His quality of being coherent got him through the challenging times. But the most challenging and promising time of his political career began on March 16, 2022, the day he administered the oath of CM. His administrative inexperience was made an issue by the opposition parties, but this disadvantage worked in his favour. He was not carrying any tags or past baggage and it allowed him to make a clean start.
Mann will be judged on every step and he has no alternative other than delivering the results to the people. The upcoming Lok Sabha elections coincide with the completion of two years of the AAP government of Punjab. Mann may have claimed many feathers in his cap but still, he has to pass this litmus test of Lok Sabha polls. His writ and wit still prevail but he needs to start introspection before it is too late.
*Senior journalist. The views expressed are personal.
