As electioneering drew to a close in Punjab Friday two days before voting, leaders from various parties in the fray raised their pitch on apparently polarising themes like Hindu-Sikh and turban issues.
The situation on the ground, however, tells a different story – of people who seldom vote along religious or caste lines, and where turbans are not donned by the Sikh community members alone.
Born into a Brahmin family of Hari Ke Kalan village near Muktsar, Pritpal Sharma, the AAP’s candidate from Gidderbaha and Muktsar Bar Council president, has been wearing a turban all his life. Married to Dr Mandeep Kaur, he is at home in a temple as well as in a gurudwara.
His close aide tells you how “Oh saare dharmaan nu mande hain (he believes in all religions)”. He is locked in a tough contest in the constituency with the sitting Congress MLA and transport minister Raja Amrinder Singh Warring and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)’s Dimpy Dhillon.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate from Ferozepur rural, Rajnish Kumar Dahiya, also wears a turban, and so does Ashu Banger, the ex-AAP candidate who defected to fight the election on the Congress ticket from the same seat.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (A) nominee from Bhoa near Pathankot, Munish Kumar, also wears a turban.
The 25-year-old candidate, who believes only the youth can cleanse politics, says he took to it two years ago. “I am a Ravidassiya and when I read how pagri is a matter of pride and egalitarianism, I started wearing it.”
There are Independent candidates, such as Jeevan Kumar from Kartarpur and Megh Raj from Zira, who also wear turbans. It is also the case with Harchand Ram, who is contesting from Jaitu on the Bahujan Mukti Party (BMP) ticket.
A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader explains there are two kinds of Brahmins in Punjab — those who wear turbans and others who do not.
The AAP’s Punjab co-incharge Raghav Chadha recently told The Sunday Express that he “epitomises” Punjab’s secular spirit as his mother is a Sikh while his father is a Punjabi Hindu.
Interfaith marriages are not uncommon in Punjab. Transport minister Warring’s wife Amrita was born into a Hindu Vinayak family.
The AAP MLA from Bathinda Rural, Rupinder Kaur Ruby, who is now contesting from Malout on a Congress ticket, is married to Sahil Puri, while the AAP candidate from Moga, Dr Amandeep Kaur, is the wife of Dr Rakesh Arora.
The four-time Congress MLA from Amloh, Kaka Randeep Singh Nabha, has been married to Behishta Khan from Afghanistan for over 19 years now. Manish Tewari’s late mother, Dr Amrita Kaur Tewari, was a Sikh, and the Congress MP from Fatehgarh Sahib is married to a Parsi.
Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu, who is contesting the election from Amritsar East, says he imbibed his “interest in spirituality” from his late Hindu mother. In the neighbouring constituency of Amritsar North, Japleen Kaur is canvassing for her father-in-law Anil Joshi, the SAD candidate who was earlier with the BJP.
Angad Singh Saini, the Congress rebel contesting from Nawanshehar, got married to Aditi Singh, the BJP’s candidate from UP’s Rae Bareilly seat, two years ago without any controversy or disapproval from his Saloh village.
Former Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh’s grandsons and granddaughter have all had interfaith marriages, with their wedding functions hosted by the scion of the erstwhile Patiala royal family himself.
In Punjab, it is also not uncommon for members of a family to support different parties. The Bajwa family mansion at Qadian near Amritsar is adorned with two flags — one of the Congress for Partap Singh Bajwa, who is contesting from there, and the other one of the BJP for his younger brother Fateh Jung, the saffron party’s candidate from Batala.
On the ground, some of the loudest votaries of the panthic Akali Dal are Hindu traders. At an upmarket shop at Malout, a man named Prince, when told that five-time Akali chief minister Parkash Singh Badal is facing a tough contest, laughed, quipping “Bhul jao, oh wade Badal saab ne, ohna nu koi nahin hara sakda (forget it, he is the big Badal, no one can defeat him).”
Amid a discussion on the AAP-BJP face-off at the Shastri auto market in Batala, Balbir Kumar, with grease on his hands, rooted for the Akalis, saying “I will vote for them.”
At Dera Baba Nanak town, home to the Kartarpur corridor, a local shopkeeper says his vote will go to the Akalis.
At Gandhi Chowk nearby, a shopkeeper supporting the Bharatiya Janata Party, Naresh Sharma, says he would have voted for the Congress if it had fielded minister Tript Rajinder Bajwa.
“That man had done a lot of work here,” he explains. As regards religion, he says, “That’s not an issue, work counts.”
