AFTER cancellation of Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar’s rallies in Punjab’s rural belt on February 12, Sunday saw actor-politician Hema Malini’s entire tour being cancelled without the party spelling out any reason. She was to address rallies in Amritsar East, Amritsar West in the morning, and later in Maur in the afternoon. Even Home Minister Amit Shah’s programme was tweaked at the last minute to remove Sunam from his rally schedule.
While the party maintains that farmers’ call for protest has nothing to do with these changes, Sunam and Maur stand out as constituencies in Malwa, where this call could have added to BJP’s woes.
Since the campaign picked, BJP’s star campaigners have been avoiding interior belt of the Malwa region where the farm unions hold sway.
BKU (Dakaunda) and BKU (Ugrahan) had announced a protest in Sunam against Amit Shah’s visit, but that programme was cancelled much before the arrangements were to start at ground level.
Jagseer Singh Jhumba, district committee member of BKU (Ugrahan) from Bathinda district said, “We had announced protest against Hema Malini’s visit. They had been making arrangements till Saturday evening and we got to know that program was cancelled by Saturday late night.”
Since February 9, the rallies held by the BJP star campaigners in Malwa have been in Ropar, Ghanaur by BJP national president J P Nadda on February 12 and Kharar, Anandpur Sahib by Himachal CM Jai Ram Thakur on February 11. On February 10, Thakur had addressed a rally in Zirakpur area. But all these Malwa constituencies are the ones where urban voters are in large numbers and farm unions are less active.
All other BJP strength shows have been in urban areas where there have been contesting for the past several years in alliance with SAD.
Amit Shah’s Patiala Urban rally was in former CM Capt Amarinder Singh’s constituency, which is in Malwa.
On February 17, the only physical rally of the PM in Malwa will be in Abohar, which has remained a BJP seat for more than 25 years.
Khattar had to address rallies in Jagraon and Gill constituencies of Ludhiana which were rural and third one was in Kapurthala, but the event was cancelled. Though BJP had cited technical issues, but BKU (Dakaunda) members had stated that they had announced a massive protest at Jagraon. After cancellation of the event, they had even organised a victory rally at Dana Mandi, Jagraon.
Union Minister Smriti Irani came to Malwa too, but stuck to Ludhiana’s urban areas on February 9.
“We protest against BJP candidates and even other candidates as well in rural areas where our unions are strong. We can’t forget the struggle against farm laws due to indifferent attitude of NDA government. BJP’s Surjit Singh Jyani also faced protest in Fazilka villages on Saturday,” said Manjit Singh Dhaner, senior vice president of BKU (Dakaunda).
However, the party has been campaigning aggressively in other areas. Himachal CM Jairam Thakur addressed rallies in Jalandhar Central and Jalandhar North in Doaba, apart from Kharar in Malwa, on February 11, while on February 10, he addressed in Mukerian, Garshankar in Doaba and Anandpur Sahib and Zirakpur in Malwa Punjab. BJP MP Manoj Tewari will be coming to address three rallies in migrant belts of Khanna and Samrala in Ludhiana district, while third one will be in Mohali on Monday. PM Narendra Modi is also coming to Jalandhar on February 14 and Pathankot on February 16.