Rani Kaur sells vegetables on the road to Badal, home to the eponymous political family that leads the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and has held Bathinda almost uninterrupted since 1996. She is unmindful of the 46°C temperature that is more severe beside the metalled road.
“I have four daughters and two sons. We have some land, but prices of crops fluctuate and we do wage labour as well to survive. Selling vegetables directly to customers gives me an additional ₹300-400 a day,” she explains.
Her customers include government employees in the various institutions clustered around Badal village, credited to its ruling family. Harsimrat Badal, wife of party chief Sukhbir Singh Badal, won the last two elections with margins of only around 2%, despite being in alliance with the BJP.
In the 2022 Assembly polls, AAP won all nine Assembly segments here.
This election will be a litmus test for the former minister — who resigned from the Union cabinet in 2020 protesting the farm laws — while her political rivals try to breach the Badal fortress.
“I don’t know what it means to live in a VIP seat. In all these years, the government hasn’t even given my son a tricycle,” Rani Kaur replied when asked about the perks of living in a pocket borough of a powerful family.
Rani Kaur sells vegetables near Bajak village. Picture by Pheroze L. Vincent
Across the road, two peasants dig a furrow to irrigate the paddy crop they will sow before the rains. The sand around them radiates heat like a stove. The price for the previous wheat crop burns their hearts.
“I received ₹2,175 per quintal (₹100 less than the MSP, given for lower quality grain) for 15 quintals I produced for this acre. The seeds I got were so bad that production was half this year,” farmer Sukhdev Singh said. “No party has improved my condition, so I think it’s best to vote for the Akalis again as they at least understand the problems of landlords. All the risk is ours, but we don’t get the doles that the poor or the rich industrialists get.”
On Malout road, on the outskirts of Bathinda city, a grocery store of jailed godman Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insan serves as a meeting point for elderly men.
“There is no question of allowing the BJP to campaign after what they did to the farmers,” one of the elders, Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ekta Sidhupur) leader Sher Singh, said.
“In AAP’s favour, they have reduced the price of electricity, but they haven’t increased the income support of women that they promised to hike by ₹1000. If the AAP government can’t afford to give ₹1,000, I can’t understand how the Congress will give ₹1 lakh to poor families if they are elected.
“But (PM) Manmohan Singh did bring MGNREGA which gave us work, and not free doles. There are so many promises by the parties that we are all confused. The Akalis were corrupt, no doubt, but Bathinda prospered under them. But India prospered under the Congress,” he added.
“We have tried everyone, but we don’t know what to do this time,” said Sukhdarshan Singh, a peasant and a Nihang Sikh (traditional warrior) in Lehra Mohabbat.
The town is known for its state government-run thermal power plant, but permanent jobs are few and the takers many.
“In 2022, we gave AAP a chance. We are thankful for lower electricity bills but beyond that what has the government been able to do? Even their ministers can’t get drains cleaned in front of their own homes,” he said echoing many that AAP legislators have failed to tame a bureaucracy that is seen as distant if not dysfunctional by many.
“To rule, one needs to be tough like the Badals. All the parties are contesting separately and I don’t know whom I will finally vote for but I feel it’s safe to go with the Badals as this is their fort,” he added.
Rahul Thakur’s grocery store opposite the power plant is a spot for employees to vent their ire. Thakur got his first-division electrician’s diploma but couldn’t find permanent work at the plant.
But then, Papinder Singh has worked at the plant for 20 years and is still not permanent. “If this is a VIP seat, then can’t the VIPs regularise us? Every party has promised to improve work conditions. After polls, all is forgotten.”
Bathinda votes today
