Land-pooling fiasco exposes gap in AAP feedback system
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This was once one of its core strengths, setting it apart from the Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal.
The manner in which a policy of such magnitude was pushed from the top, with only a few senior leaders defending it while most of its MLAs, constituency in-charges, and other leaders chose to remain silent, despite the party leadership's significant stakes, makes this gap appear even larger. Ahead of the 2022 assembly election, AAP had a subtle but robust mechanism in place to read the mood on the ground and then tweak and fine-tune its narrative during the campaign.
It smartly used the issues and changed the template, while the Congress and SAD stuck to their old templates, which made the difference in the 2022 election.
Even the decision to contest the Lok Sabha election in 2024 in chief minister Bhagwant Mann's name only, and not in party supremo Arvind Kejriwal's name, or in their names together as was done in 2022, seemed to be driven by this strong system of feedback or surveys.
The results later reflected a significant drop in vote share from 42% to 26%, with the party winning only three seats.
On other occasions, the ruling party has been adept at tweaking its campaigns and pushing narratives strongly. However, the way it floundered on the Land Pooling Policy, while sticking to it for over two months, reflects a failure to understand the mood on the ground in real-time.
In addition to this gap, what seemed missing, and still appears absent after the withdrawal of the policy, are cogent reasons for introducing a land pooling scheme of such a large scale. There has been no visible demand for housing on the ground, especially when significant emigration of the young and their families has become a major issue among Punjabis, leading to discussions about changing demographics.
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