The Congress did extremely well in the Malwa region, which has always been considered an Akali stronghold, with the party getting 37 of 65 seats, compared to 29 in 2002. The region also happens to an area where large sections of the rural population have been profitably integrated into the global market under the earlier Congress regime. For instance, Pepsi introduced contract farming on a commercial scale for the tomato crop in the early 1990s in Punjab. In 2002, soon after coming to power, the Congress government began to actively promote contract farming, and by 2007, many farmers were happily integrated into the new system. Pepsi, Hindustan Lever and Chambal Agritech have entered into direct contracts with farmers for procuring basmati rice, chillies, ginger, garlic, mango, guava, orange, potato chips, and medicinal plants.

Farmers in the region have been quick to appreciate the benefits inherent in contract farming, new technologies and crops such as Bt cotton and horticulture. While Bt cotton may not have been very successful in many other regions, Punjab’s farmers — having crossed the threshold through the Green Revolution and blessed with irrigation facilities — were in a position to profit from it. Farmers in Malwa, particularly those linked to the new economy, have become decidedly more prosperous. The Amarinder Singh government had definitely played a major role in creating a policy environment for these changes, including the controversial step of the abrogation of the tripartite water treaty. While not discounting the influence of the Sacha Sauda and the Jat Sikh sentiments for Amarinder Singh, one has to acknowledge that Malwa’s farmers, who are more linked to the market economy than their counterparts in other states, voted positively for the Congress.

The reasons for the Congress’s failure could be elsewhere. The focus Jat Sikhs got under Amarinder Singh won the party support from that section and simultaneously alienated several others. That is one reason for the party’s bad performance overall — particularly in the urban centres that voted for the BJP, which won 19 seats in 2007 compared to three in 2002.

In Amarinder Singh’s cabinet, nine of the 18 ministers were Jats, and the entire state administration was structured in a fashion that weighed in favour of Jats, collaterally decreasing the access of other sections to power. The policy accent of the government always remained sensitive to Jats, creating a sense of dispossession for others in the Congress. The Congress took the Hindu votes for granted — assuming them to be captive voters — and failed to accommodate Dalit aspirations, both Hindu and Sikh. In 2002, Congress had won 14 of the 29 SC reserved constituencies — in 2007, it won seven.

Then there were organisational and tactical failures. Five who were denied Congress tickets won as independents. In four of these five, official Congress candidates came third — indicating that the party’s candidate selection process was out of touch with the ground reality. Two of these seats fell within the parliamentary constituency of the earlier PCC chief, Shamsher Singh Dhullo. The Congress fielded its PCC chief as a candidate, leaving the organisation to be run by clerks at the headquarters for the entire campaign period. Dhullo lost his own seat, which he had taken from his wife, the sitting MLA.

The party high command chose to turn a blind eye to party in-fighting throughout 2006. The state unit of the party was placed under veteran Pranab Mukherjee in 2004, as Amarinder Singh raked up the sensitive water issue. But the Congress soon lost interest in the state. Janardan Dwivedi, who took charge in January 2006, visited Punjab rarely, perhaps assuming that there was nothing left there to fight for.

In 2002 the Congress led by a mere one per cent of votes in the state assembly elections. In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, the gap between the Congress and Akali combine was 6 per cent in the latter’s favour. In 2006, the party brought down that gap to 4.7 per cent. But it still could not hold on to power.

To blame this on market reform is not just lazy political analysis, it is a deliberate cover-up of organisational inefficiency.