Chandigarh: In the sixth month of its formation, the Captain Amarinder Singh Government seems to be enjoying an extended ‘honeymoon period’ with the masses in Punjab. After an unexpected landslide in the Assembly elections held in February 2017, with the party winning 77 seats in a house of 117 with a vote share of 38.5 per cent, the public perception of the working of the Government remains positive. This despite the fact that the regime is going slow (at least in comparison to the promised time frame) on some of its key commitments, including farm loan waivers, jobs to unemployed, and smart phones for youth among others, it had made in its election manifesto.
The positive public discernment of Capt Amarinder government was brought to the fore in two snap polls conducted online by Living India News over the last two days.
The first of the opinion polls featured the question: ‘How do you rate the performance of the Captain Amarinder Government till date?’
In an endorsement of the present Government’s actions so far, 78.7 per cent of the respondents who took part in the poll felt that the Government was doing a ‘Very Good’ or ‘Good’ job (73 percent – Very Good, 5.7 per cent – Good). The nay sayers were limited to 17.9 per cent, of whom 14.7 per cent rated the performance as ‘Very Poor’ with 3.2 per cent ranking it as ‘Poor’. Interestingly, 3.4 per cent of the respondents said that the Captain ‘Needs more time’. Of a total of 2791 respondents who took part in the four-hour long poll, 2102 were based in Punjab.
The second Opinion Poll was centered on Gurdaspur by-elections. The Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat had fallen vacant after the demise of BJP MP and actor Vinod Khanna on April 27, 2017. The elections to the constituency are due before October 27 as per the code for elections to a parliamentary seat falling vacant prior to completion of the full-term of Lok Sabha.
As of now, none of the political parties have declared their candidates for the constituency. The online Opinion poll aimed to judge the chances of a victory for the mainstream political parties on the basis of party’s public standing alone. The respondents were required to answer the query: Who will win the Gurdaspur by-elections? Surprisingly, going by absolute numbers alone, the Congress party seems to be in good stead in the constituency as of now. The party got the highest number of votes with 1098 respondents voting in its favor. The Akali-BJP combine polled 1090 votes, with the Aam Aadmi Party restricted to 268 votes. 37 respondents preferred to go with Others.
From the Congress party’s point of view the outcome is significant for more than one reasons, but mainly because Gurdaspur has traditionally been a BJP bastion. BJP’s Vinod Khanna won the seat four times bewteen 1998 and 2014 (Indian National Congress’ Partap Singh Bajwa bagged it in 2009). Keeping in view the variance level of an online poll and the other parameters involved, we are not in a position to predict a winner on the basis of a wafer thin margin of eight votes.
The inference that can safely be drawn is: The contest for Gurdaspur is likely to be between Congress and the Akali-BJP combine.The fact that Aam Aadmi Party, which had ruled the online media in the run up to the Punjab Assembly Elections, was nowhere near the front-runners should come as an eye-opener for the present party leadership. This is especially so since the present group of AAP leaders will be out to make a mark on their own, without ‘interference’ from Delhi leadership. The Gurdaspur by-poll is just the platform for them to do so. The state party unit, however, would do well to get a move on and get cracking if they are to overcome the deep sense of disappointment that has seeped into the party cadre in the wake of Punjab Assembly elections.