The current run-up to the Punjab assembly elections in mid-February appears no different. Outlandish promises are being made to the electorate and outrageous allegations being hurled at rivals.

Often, this leaves me cold. But occasionally, it gets me hot under the collar. Is this what democracy is supposed to be all about? Is anyone discussing the real issues? Or pointing out that the real issues are not being discussed?

What are the real issues in Punjab? Let me take up two.

The agrarian economy of Punjab is stuck in what can only be described as a quagmire. The situation is messier than is made out either by those who run governments or those whose hearts apparently bleed for the Punjabi peasantry. Everybody harps on how foodgrain production reached a plateau years ago, and agricultural incomes have stagnated since then, or even declined when we calculate the cost of inputs.

But is there a political party in Punjab bold and honest enough to declare that the state’s economy has to operate in the larger context of the Indian economy, now increasingly driven by market forces? Will anyone openly admit that free or nearly free power to the farmer cannot be maintained for all times to come? Or that minimum support prices cannot be increased every year? Or that prompt purchase of food grains by governments agencies cannot be assured forever?

Punjabi farmers have thus far been lucky in that the Akali-BJP alliance ruled the state when the NDA ruled at the Centre, and then there have been Congress governments at both levels. This ensured that economic rationale could be bent to suit political convenience. What will happen if the Akalis come to power in Punjab while the Congress rules at the Centre, or the Congress comes to power in Punjab while the BJP heads the government in Delhi?

Will the two major political parties in Punjab stop populist promise-mongering and admit that Punjabi farmers will have to be on their own, that crop diversification is not an option but a necessity, and that ecologically unsustainable paddy cultivation must give way to alternative commercial crops?

Is there a difference between the two parties on this score? The answer is yes and no. The Akalis have traditionally thrived on mixing religion with politics and showing how Sikhs in general and the Punjab peasantry in particular have been discriminated against. They have not budged from this position and are unlikely to do so. The Congress government did try to encourage diversification in the beginning. Of late, however, electoral compulsions have forced it to revert to populism.

The second issue is of demographic change resulting from the unceasing influx of migrant labour into Punjab. Of course, these workers from poor eastern states have every right to migrate in search of livelihood, and Punjabis, habitual migrants in search of greener pastures, have no right to complain.

Experience shows, however, that resentments and tensions begin to grow among the locals whenever the size of migrant population grows beyond a point, when they begin to buy small portions of land and petty businesses, and most of all, when they begin to nurture political ambitions as well.

All this is happening in Punjab. In the long run, the altered demographic composition of the state can have serious implications for social and political order. What multicultural policies and administrative measures are required to avert social conflict in the years to come? Is either of the two parties seriously addressing this issue?

Given that neither party has a well-defined position on these issues, I am not looking at the forthcoming elections with great hope or anxiety. But I do wish that serious political debate on these issues gets started once the electoral dust settles down.

The writer is professor of political science at Panjab University, Chandigarh