The one thing Gandhis can do to win Punjab vote

Captain Amarinder Singh is within striking distance of wresting power in Punjab, if this month's pre-poll survey is any indication. But there's always many a slip between the cup and the lip.

The Gandhis, if they want, can narrow down the gap.

Punjab is home to the highest population of SCs, proportionally. Yet, this bloc isn't as monolithic as it is in other states. Hardliners are on the fringe and so are their leaders, whose credibility is suspect.

Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party has stirred the pot considerably for Singh's Congress, which otherwise would be the obvious choice for voters sickened by the alleged corrupt governance of the Badal dynasty. 

AAP partly owes its popularity in Punjab not to its own competence but to the shrill criticism of its administration in national media and to police crackdown on its MLAs.

A proponent of smashmouth politics, AAP leader Kejriwal has exploited the heavy-handedness of multi-sided attacks on him and his party by the BJP, the Akalis, the Congress and AAP rebels to his own advantage in Punjab.

Scepticism of Delhi is hardwired into the DNA of the Sikh-majority state because of valid historical reasons.

An example showed up recently when Punjab reacted furiously - and suspiciously - to evacuations of its border villages after the surgical strikes in PoK. Elsewhere in the Hindi heartland, the Army's swoop was greeted with a lot of chest-thumping.

Kejriwal has taken the pulse of the state's entrenched agnosticism of central rule.

Throughout his political career, Akali veteran Parkash Singh Badal manipulated the same sentiments. Now, it's the AAP chief capitalising on them in his trademark shoot-and-scoot style. 

That said, Kejriwal's origin from Delhi (or the NCR) and his pan-India ambitions are his own Achilles’ heel in Punjab.

His trusted lieutenants managing election plans are again non-Punjabis. Even if he names a local or a non-local but Sikh face as the candidate for the top job in the state, chances are he or she would be a greenhorn chosen to lead a border state with a difficult history.

More than Kejriwal, Punjab will determine the future of the Congress, India's oldest party.

A large number of state voters like Captain Singh. A large number of Panthak voters - the core constituency of the Badals - detest the Congress.

Two momentous Sikh events happened in 1984 - Operation Blue Star in Amritsar and the massacre of Sikhs in Delhi and various other parts of India after the assassination of then prime minister, Indira Gandhi.

Both wounded the Sikh psyche. But Operation Blue Star left a deeper, pestering scar. In their daily prayers, Sikhs recall their martyrs from the Mughal period to independent India. And that's a fact.

The 1984 military raid on the holiest of their shrines seared into the Sikh soul. For many of them, the assault on the nucleus of their faith was an unpardonable offence. 

From then on, hostilities grew between the Sikhs and the Congress. When Congress president Sonia Gandhi, under insurmountable attack herself over her foreign descent, named Manmohan Singh as PM in 2004, she rebuilt bridges with the Sikh community.

Singh's apology in Parliament as PM over the 1984 mass killing of Sikhs healed some wounds further.

But the Gandhis - Sonia and her son Rahul - have remained vague about Operation Blue Star. 

The Congress president has so far remained ambiguous about the military operation that her mother-in-law had ordered on the Darbar Sahib (Golden Temple complex) in June 1984. Sonia Gandhi has either reportedly expressed "regrets" or "anguish" on the events of 1984. She has fallen short of voicing an unequivocal apology.

I have a feeling if she does that even now with a solemn visit to the most sacred site of Sikhism in Amritsar, she will likely make history.

Driven to drugs, joblessness and crime, Punjab inherently is crying for a sustainable, honest leadership. Captain Singh appears to be a reasonable option. 

But the Panthak vote-bloc, which wields influence in at least 50 boroughs, is the real kingmaker.

A Blue Star apology by the Nehru-Gandhi family will likely leave quite a positive impression on them. But it should be sincere and clear. Else, remember Punjab's skeptic DNA.

Also read: Why Punjab polls 2017 will be a high-drama affair