The Aam Aadmi Party’s candidate for chief minister, Bhagwant Mann, has won the confidence of many in this sleepy agrarian constituency. Among them are several serving and former functionaries of the Congress, which narrowly won Dhuri last time. Opinion, however, is divided on which party will be more effective in countering the BJP at the Centre.

Dhuri is part of the Sangrur parliamentary seat, which Mann — a satirist — holds. He has said his politics is inspired by Italian comedian turned politician Beppe Grillo, who started the Five Star Movement, an anti-establishment party similar to AAP. Mann’s main opponent is the Congress’s Dalvir Singh Goldy, who won the seat by a whisker in 2017.

Kulwant Singh and Gurpreet Singh — both Congress members of the Kaulseri panchayat — were watching work on a railway line when this correspondent met them. Asked about the Assembly elections on Sunday, both said: “Badlaav chahida (We want change.)”

Kulwant explained: “None of the boys from the village are working on the railway line. The contractor brought all the men from Bihar. As it is there isn’t enough work. Plus, we spend money on travelling by bus to Dhuri (7km away) as there is no primary health centre here. I have complained so many times, but governments come and go and do nothing about it.”

Farmer Netar Singh watches work on the railway line at Kaulseri village in Dhuri, Punjab. Pheroze L. Vincent

Gurpreet weighed in: “The only good education here is from two private schools which even I, as a ward member, cannot afford. When Bhagwant promises to build a good Delhi-type government school here, how can we ask villagers not to vote for AAP?”

Retired technician and peasant Netar Singh said he wanted a party that would express his rage. “We work so hard. Even elderly people try and do something on the fields, even if it is just offering tea to some other peasant. Dhuri block registers record rice harvests. Yet, we are always in debt and we know of suicides. Instead of addressing these problems, a BJP chief minister (Yogi Adityanath) says vote for us or become like Kerala or Bengal. Does Kerala have indebtedness like Punjab or illiteracy and Covid deaths like in Uttar Pradesh?” he asked.

Congress-ruled Punjab’s suicide rate is lower than the national average, but a 2015-16 agriculture census in the state pegged the average debt at more than Rs 10 lakh per agricultural household. Netar Singh rued the shrinking of public veterinary services and the promotion of the private sector over cooperatives in fertiliser retail.

He said: “I don’t know if AAP will take up these issues in future but I have not heard of a solution from the Akalis or the Congress…. I hope AAP does what Kerala’s communists do — solve problems for people who work with their hands and stop the BJP at the Centre from selling out to private companies and sowing division.”

Sangrur used to be a CPI bastion with the party winning the Lok Sabha seat twice in 1962 and 1971 when Ghadar freedom fighter and peasant leader Teja Singh Sutantar was elected from here. However, CPIML-Liberation candidate Harpreet Singh has little traction here. Sympathisers like Netar Singh are swayed by the class-struggle idioms in Mann’s satire as they see AAP as a winnable horse to carry forward the red legacy.

Interestingly, wolf and lamb drink from the same AAP pond.

In Dhuri’s grain mandi, this correspondent met several commissioning agents or arhtiyas who had gathered to greet a former colleague who has moved to Canada but has returned to vote. Arhtiyas clean, grade, procure and auction grain for a share of the profit. They double as moneylenders and agricultural input dealers — giving loans at short notice that banks won’t and selling fertilisers and pesticides. The farm protesters were vilified by the ruling establishment at the Centre as arhtiyas.

All arhtiyas who spoke to The Telegraph expressed support for AAP.

Once active in the Congress’s Punjab unit, arhtiya Major Singh has now withdrawn from politics. “I have seen the system from inside and I know that it is sick. We arhtiyas were vilified by the BJP, but in reality we are in the doldrums because farmers who we do business with are impoverished as a result of bad policies. If you want to help the farmers, declare minimum support prices for all crops according to the formula the unions have laid down.”

He added: “The Akalis created the mess, Captain (Amarinder Singh of the Congress) worsened it and (chief minister Charanjit Singh) Channi could not fix it. There is no expectation from the BJP to save agriculture. Bhagwant’s jokes ring true for us. He must be given a chance to bring some change.”

Harminder Singh, a former arhtiya who now teaches truck driving in Canada, said: “I left because I was sick of corruption. In Canada, politicians don’t make promises they can’t keep, and I get paid fairly for what I do. Perhaps this is my last vote here as I have applied to emigrate. So I have come to do some good by voting for change.”

Goldy waged a formidable campaign but failed to tie Mann down to Dhuri.

Hans Raj, a sweet-seller in Rajo Majra village, said: “The labyrinth of village roads you see here were laid during Congress rule. But people say it is ‘sadda haq (our right)’. That is true but which is the party that secured this right after so long? This election is not about the success or failure of the Congress. It is an AAP wave. But can they stop the BJP at the Centre from imposing its will on us?”