Ascendance of a State Level Party

The 2012 Assembly Elections in Punjab received attention for being the first elections in post-1966 reorganised Punjab to witness return to power of an incumbent party regime. The elections also saw the emergence of a new set of political leadership, most notably the rise of Sukhbir Badal, the SAD President who led the campaign and crafted the Akali victory. The rise and fall of Manpreet Badal, the founder President of Punjab Peoples Party in the role of the ‘challenger’ was another notable feature. The social and spatial patterns of electoral outcome, as revealed in the CSDS post-poll survey data, showed that the consistent efforts of the Akali Dal to broaden its support base while retaining its core social constituency in order to shed/lessen its dependency over the BJP has started bearing fruits. The Congress suffered an unexpected defeat primarily due to its leadership failure. ____________________________________________________________