The unprecedented victory of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the recent elections in Punjab has changed the status of established parties and traditional politics. It broke many traditions and myths of voting behaviour, especially on religious grounds in the case of Punjab.
Post-poll poll data for Lokniti shows that the AAP garnered nearly half of the Sikh votes. Both the traditional parties in the state saw a substantial decline in their support among this group (Table 1). AAP not only swayed Sikh votes but also made gains among Hindus. The Congress, on the other hand, saw a nearly 20 per cent drop in its vote share among Hindus since the last assembly election. BJP+ could not garner the support of Hindus to the extent it wanted, as only one-sixth Hindus voted for the party.
The AAP’s vote share among Hindu voters was highest in the Majha region (39%), followed by Malwa (37%), which also happens to be the state’s largest region. Congress, on the other hand, managed to get one-third of Hindu votes in Majha region, followed by three out of every 10 votes in Doaba and only two out of 10 in Malwa.
AAP led its opponents among all types of Sikhs – Amritdhari, Keshdhari and Sahajdaris. However, its best performance in terms of votes was among the Sehajdhari Sikhs. Its performance was less impressive among Amritdharis (difference of 10 percentage points).
issue of sacrilege
The sacrilege that took place during the Akali-BJP rule in Punjab in 2015 remained an important issue for Sikhs in this election as well. For nearly four-fifths of Sikh voters and three-fifths of Hindu voters, this was a very important voting issue (Table 2). The data highlights Sikh sentiment towards the Congress government over its failure to protect the honor of Sikhism, as it did for the Akalis in the 2017 election. Both times, more than half of the Sikh voters said that the SAD and the Congress had failed to protect and uphold Sikhism.
Sikh voters found resonance in a new party with the hope that it would defend the honor of Sikhism. The AAP benefited from this and had a greater edge among Sikhs for whom the issue of sacrilege was to some degree or more important. Most Sikhs saw AAP as the best party to defend the interests of their religion (40%). However, when it came to Hindus, there was a close contest between the AAP (28%) and the Congress (26%) (Table 3).
Sikhs not keen on CM
Statistics also show that not only Hindus (80%) but also seven out of 10 Sikhs were against the proposal that only one Sikh should be the Chief Minister of Punjab. It is also noteworthy that voters in the state did not give much importance to the religion of the candidate and more than six in 10 Sikh and Hindu voters said that they did not consider the religion of the candidate as an important factor while casting their vote.
This was clearly anger against traditional parties that had failed to live up to the expectations of the people in fulfilling their promises. AAP’s “model of governance” resonated with both Hindu and Sikh voters in Punjab. Now someone will see the delivery of that governance model!
Jagroop Singh Sekhon is a former Professor of Political Science at Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, Punjab and a Research Associate at Vibha Atri Lokniti-CSDS, Delhi