Kerala breached, Punjab is BJP's new frontier, party vows introspection

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, June 5

“We are ready for a long haul in Punjab”, says a BJP leader after the border state emerged as the new frontier for saffron forces when they thought they would make history on June 4 by winning at least one parliament seat across all states of India thereby becoming a truly pan nation force.

But, Punjab halted that march, even though Kerala, a long held Left and Congress fortress, was finally breached on Tuesday, with actor Suresh Gopi becoming the first ever BJP MP from the southern state.

The lone Kerala win was as stunning for the BJP as the fact that it drew a blank in Punjab, which gave seven seats to the Congress, three to AAP, one to Akali Dal and two to radicals.

“Punjab results will stun you,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi had told The Tribune in a recent interview.

The stunner that came was certainly not the one the BJP was hoping for after the government opened the Kartarpur Corridor for devotees, scrapped GST on langar, declared December 26 as Veer Bal Divas in the memory of Guru Gobind Singh’s sons who sacrificed their lives in the line of duty and held regular and massive outreaches with the Sikh community at regular intervals.

Baffled by a complete rout in the state, where it was contesting national elections on its own for the first time since 1997, the BJP leaders admit that farmers’ issues could have resonated more deeply than was thought.

That explains why Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his victory speech at the BJP headquarters on Tuesday, made a special mention of farmers.

“We will keep prioritising the task of modernising agriculture from the level of purchase of seeds to the level of sales in the markets. From pulses to edible oils we will constantly work to make our farmers self-reliant,” said the PM hailing NDA’s third term at the Centre as a historical mandate, one that has come for the first time for any government since 1962.

The party leaders vowed deep introspection of Punjab results, with the state high on PM’s personal agenda.

In 2019, Sunny Deol and Som Prakash had won on BJP tickets in Punjab’s Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur respectively.

This time all BJP candidates lost elections with Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge’s prediction that “all defectors will lose” coming true.

The BJP, however, took heart from the fact that it bagged 18.56 per cent vote share in the state as against 9.63 per cent in 2019.

“We will work resiliently in Punjab, identify the aspirations of people and work to fulfil those,” said a leader.

Meanwhile, Taranjit Singh Sandhu who lost the Amritsar seat plans to open an office in the city anyway and keep working for its residents, his defeat notwithstanding.

Sandhu would play a crucial role in the PM’s Punjab outreach going forward, sources told The Tribune.