In Punjab, disillusionment with AAP boosts Congress hopes

“I had voted for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in 2022, this time I will vote for the Congress chaahe jitte chaahe haare (whether it wins or loses),” says Baljinder Kumar of Rakra Dhahan village in the Anandpur Sahib Lok Sabha constituency as his wife Kulwinder Kaur nods.

The Congress won 8 of the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab in 2019. However, since then, the party has been facing a series of setbacks. It was swept away in the 2022 Assembly polls, where it won only 18 of the 117 seats, and the aftermath saw many of its leaders, including former Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, deserting the ship for the BJP. With almost two dozen others facing Vigilance probes and jail terms, the Punjab Congress can take heart from such voices.

Months ago, AICC general secretary in-charge for Punjab Devender Yadav, told The Indian Express that they would fight the polls “on the front foot” with their stalwarts in the ring. True to his word, the party has fielded senior leaders such as state Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring (Ludhiana), former Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi (Jalandhar), ex-Deputy Chief Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa (Gurdaspur), and its panthic face Sukhpal Singh Khaira (Sangrur).

The Congress is hoping now that the anti-incumbency against the over two-year-old AAP government, which had come to power with sky-high expectations, will help it come close to a repeat of 2019. If the Congress had won eight seats then, the Akali Dal-BJP combine had won four, and the AAP one.

The fact that the AAP and Congress are partners in the INDIA bloc, and are fighting together in neighbouring Haryana and Delhi, has also made the Punjab contest interesting.

While Congress leaders in Punjab stoutly opposed an alliance with