Punjab: After the crushing defeat in Delhi elections, Mann made an important formula

Punjab: A bag of rose petals in hand, businessman Dinesh Tiwari and his neighbour Padam Gupta have been standing on a raised platform in one of the bylanes of Ghazipur in Delhi’s Vishwas Nagar for more than an hour on Tuesday, waiting for a glimpse of Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann. The two men are talking to each other.

“You should have seen Mann’s videos while he campaigned in Punjab. He drew such large crowds and he seemed to speak dil se. Here in Delhi too, he is sure to convert many voters not traditional AAP voters towards the party,” Tiwari tells Gupta, who nods assent.

But Mann has entered Ghazipur and the whole constituency seems suddenly charged. His slow-moving motor cavalcade enters the narrow, meandering bylanes, without the usual serpentine queues of security commonly seen trailing the CM back home in Punjab. The party election song is blaring at full volume. But the many security vehicles with commandos that usually accompany the CM are missing, instead a line of auto-rickshaws is enveloped in yellow AAP bunting and flags. They trail the SUV.

Mann gets out through the car sunroof, with party candidate Deepak Singhal perched alongside him. AAP workers shower him with rose flowers, which Mann throws good-naturedly back into the crowd. It is this image of the CM as “aam aadmi” that seems to draw the audience.

This is clearly a make-or-break election for AAP. If they keep Delhi for the third time – back in 2013, Kejriwal’s party was the second largest party in the polls and formed government with Congress for 49 days – it is bound to have a huge impact on Punjab, for which elections are due two years from now. That’s why for the past fortnight, the Punjab CM has practically moved to Delhi campaigning in Punjabi-dominated areas, or where AAP has fielded a Punjabi or Sikh candidate.

So while in rest of Delhi, the entire campaign is centred around Kejriwal, here Mann’s picture gets as much prominence on the bill boards, posters and flex boards as AAP’s most important leader. At Vishwas Nagar, he has been showered with rose petals. In Jangpura, where former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia is in a neck-and-neck fight with BJP’s Tarvinder Singh Marwah, Mann gets a rousing welcome. He doesn’t disappoint, regaling his audience with anecdotes in which an unnamed “Sahib” in the BJP who has put several AAP leaders in jail, features often. The audience is in splits of laughter. The party’s achievements in Punjab — 300 units of free power to domestic consumers and 50,000 jobs in less than three years – is a common tool that he repeats, in constituency after constituency,

“I have been campaigning in Tilak Nagar, Rajouri Garden, Krishna Nagar, Shahadara, Moti Nagar, Burari and Karol Bagh. People are responding very well to our appeal for re-election. That is because we deliver what we promise,” Mann tells The Tribune. Between roadshows, the CM has rushed to the Election Commission along with Delhi CM Atishi, before returning to a rally.

The “sahib” reference is back in Jangpura. Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Satyendar Jain and Sanjay Singh were “put in jail because they legitimately took away from rich and gave to the poor. “Par hum woh patte nahin jo shaakh se toot kar gir jayein, aandhiyon se keh do apni aukat mein rahein (AAP is not like a dried leaf which falls off the branch, tell the thunderstorm to remain within its limits),” he says in Hindi and Punjabi. The stage-actor that he once was, Mann has a joke a minute he uses to keep his audience constantly engaged. He calls upon “rabb,” or God, to shower mercy on the electorate, saying, “BJP ke pass koi agenda nahin, Congress ka poori Dilli mein Jhanda nahin; Aur Kejriwal ke jaisa danda nahin (BJP has no agenda, Congress has nothing to show for itself and there is nothing Kejriwal won’t do for the people).

And that’s how Tuesday has ended for the Punjab CM, just another day in this all-important week. Delhi will vote on February 5, after which the entire city will hold its breath for another three days before the EVM votes are counted. And as everyone knows, what happens in Delhi will echo in Chandigarh – whether the skein of power is reinforced or rattled, political history will be made.