At a time when AAP is try­ing to reignite its promise of 2014, the SAD-BJP is work­ing hard on the ground and the Con­gress is do­ing ex­actly the same pol­i­tics that the BJP is do­ing in the rest of the coun­try, how are jour­nal­ists read­ing the tea leaves? We stay away from the dan­ger­ous busi­ness of pre­dic­tions, but try to un­der­stand the dis­tilled wis­dom of the pun­dits. Our pan­el­lists mince no words, well, most of the time.

In the coun­try, the BJP is not fight­ing on what it did in five years. In Pun­jab, the Con­gress is not fight­ing on what it did in the two years of be­ing in power. The past is be­ing sold as the pre­sent, and of­ten even as our fu­ture. But Pun­jab is a lit­tle unique: It missed the Modi wave in 2014, saw the AAP wave at the time, but is keep­ing every­one guess­ing now. How­ever, it still does not seem like re­turn­ing to the tra­di­tional two-party game.

Pan­el­lists Tar­lochan Singh, Sr Jour­nal­ist, Pun­jabi Tri­bune, Baljit Balli Ed­i­tor, Babushahi.com and Sarab­jit Singh Dhali­wal, Head, Dainik Sav­era, Pun­jab join SP Singh in de­con­struct­ing Pun­jab elec­tion sce­nario 2019.

How is 2019 is dif­fer­ent for AAP? Are these elec­tions a test for the Amarinder Singh gov­ern­ment? Why is the anti-in­cum­bency fac­tor so strong in just two years? How come Bal­akot air strikes are not much of an ar­gu­ment in Pun­jab? What role will the three new par­ties — Pun­jabi Ekta Party (PEP); Nava Pun­jab Party (NPP); SAD(Tak­sali) – play? How the can­di­dates will even be jostling for the num­ber 2 po­si­tion since the real con­test of 2022 As­sem­bly elec­tions is com­ing up.

The pan­el­lists dis­cuss how do they see the Con­gress’ an­nounce­ment that it will par­tic­i­pate in the SGPC elec­tions. They talk about the im­pend­ing flurry of by-elec­tions in Pun­jab and the miss­ing en­gage­ment with the women de­mo­graphic, even when Pun­jab’s young ed­u­cated women have been putting up a spir­ited fight against the pa­tri­ar­chal value sys­tem. Also miss­ing is an en­gage­ment with the per­sis­tent strug­gle of ac­tivists on the ground like those of the Za­meen Prapti Sang­harsh Com­mit­tee, Aan­gan­wadi work­ers, Mid-day meal cooks, Aasha work­ers, and MN­REGA work­ers.