Is Punjab ready for a non-Punjabi chief minister?

Jaskirat Mann thinks the time has come so he and dozens of others like him who live overseas, dubbed Non-Resident Indians or NRIs, are returning to their homeland to campaign for Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who many say is eyeing to Punjab’s top job.

Kejriwal has said he will not contest in the Punjab polls or be the CM candidate for Punjab but many believe this is just a ploy to appease Sikhs in his party.

Kejriwal leads the AAP party but Delhi being a Federal Union Territory functions as India’s capital.

As such the Delhi state government has no say over important departments like law and order, and agencies such as the Delhi Development Authority.

Political observers in India say Kejriwal is likely to be the AAP choice to be the chief minister of Punjab should his party win in the upcoming Punjab state elections slated for early next year.

If he is successful, then Kejriwal would have set another record in India's electoral politics - of becoming the first non-Sikh Chief Minister that Punjab has seen in the last five decades.

Mann who is the AAP Canada convener will be among many more overseas supporters are expected to join the campaign in next few weeks till elections in 2017, said Sonia Victor, who is a member of the social media team of AAP Punjab.

AAP's election campaign in Doaba and Majha regions is set to get an impetus with around 40,000 Punjabi NRIs coming down to canvass for party candidates beginning October-end said local media reports.

For this, the party has decided to set up NRI cells at Jalandhar, Chandigarh and Amritsar.

Party leaders said soon after their arrival, the NRIs will be allocated constituencies, especially where they have large number of acquaintances and relatives. During the 2014 elections too, many NRI supporters of AAP had flown to their hometowns in Ludhiana and Sangrur to participate in door-to-door electioneering.

AAP claims to have active groups of supporters in several countries like Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, the US, Canada, the UK, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and UAE.

The upcoming state-assembly elections in Punjab are crucial this time as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is posing a challenge for the traditional rivals - the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP alliance and the opposition Congress.

A new political outfit, Awaaz-e-Punjab, was announced by cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu this month.

The Akali Dal-BJP combine, which has been ruling the state since 2007, will take a third shot at power in the next assembly polls.

Akali Dal (SAD) president and Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal described Kejriwal as a 'dictator'

“Kejriwal is the biggest dictator. You know he first won in Anna Hazare’s name. He immediately discarded everyone he knew would challenge him,” he said.

Calling Kejriwal “just a municipal committee president”, Badal said the AAP chief only wanted to “use Punjab for his fight against Prime Minister Modi”.

“For him, Punjab is just a battleground, not a destination. In the end, he’s going to destroy

“He wants to get Sikh votes and typically, like in Indira Gandhi’s time, by dividing the Sikhs.

Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh reacting to an Aam Aadmi Party spokesperson’s announcement that Kejriwal had decided not to contest in the Punjab polls he said, “Earlier, Kejriwal was day-dreaming of becoming the Punjab chief minister. But, having realised that the ground beneath his feet was slipping, he made a timid retreat in his characteristic fugitive manner.”

Amarinder said Kejriwal had “finally woken up” to the “harsh reality of Punjab politics” with most of his cadre having already deserted him in the “battle of self-respect and dignity between Punjabis and outsiders”.

“It is good that he realised that Punjabis were not going to accept a non-Punjabi, a Haryanvi at that, as their leader and he ran away at the earliest given opportunity,” he said, adding that AAP would do better to announce their “Punjabi chief ministerial candidate’s name”, if it had any.