It goes without saying that the General Elections in India have become more individual-centric at the national level after the ascent of Narendra Modi. Even prior to him, the General Elections were fought in the name of Vajpayee and Advani by the BJP and Dr Manmohan Singh by the Congress in 2009.
Interestingly, Punjab is also likely to witness individual-centric elections in at least five of the 13 parliamentary constituencies, where the ideologies and party affiliations are likely to be a secondary consideration, with the primary focus going to be on the individual candidates. That also makes the Punjab results highly unpredictable.
This is mainly because, the elections in Punjab are going to be four and five-cornered contests this time, making it very difficult to make any idea about the likely outcome.
In Jalandhar, the election will be centred on the Congress candidate, Charanjit Singh Channi, a former Chief Minister. It is going to be Channi versus the rest. Channi is emerging as a popular Dalit leader in the state, particularly in the Doaba region, the epicentre of Dalit politics in Punjab.
In the Ludhiana parliamentary constituency, the election is likely to centre around the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Ravneet Singh Bittu, a three-time Congress MP and grandson of former Chief Minister late Beant Singh, who militants assassinated.
In Patiala also, the election will be centred around the BJP candidate and former Minister of State for External Affairs, Preneet Kaur. Kaur has also joined the BJP after resigning from the Congress. She is a four-time MP from Patiala. All these terms were as a Congress candidate only, before she joined the BJP, following in the footsteps of her husband and former Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, who joined the BJP last year.
In Bathinda also, the election will be mainly centred around three-time Akali MP and a former union minister, Harsimrat Kaur Badal. Although Badal has not been declared as a candidate so far, in all likelihood, the Akalis will field her only from Bathinda.
There is a likelihood of the contest in a few more constituencies turning individual-centric, which will depend on the choice of remaining candidates to be made by the Akalis, the BJP and the Congress. The AAP has already announced the candidates for all 13 seats in Punjab.
This is not to say that the individual leaders are above the parties they are contesting from. It is only their seniority and influence, coupled with the strength of their respective parties that makes them to be perceived as stronger than the rest.
No matter how individual-centric the contest may turn, the primary support and strength of every candidate remains the party they contesting from.
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