Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) Bhagwant Mann, who is set to become the chief minister of Punjab, hails from a place called Sunam in Sangrur. It is said that the people born in Sunam are called 'sunami'. Mann himself told the Lok Sabha in 2019 that “If (PM) Modi is a wave, I am a (t)sunami.” While Modi and his BJP's clout over the country's politics remain intact, as the assembly election results showed on Thursday, AAP's 'Mann Tsunami' has washed away the Congress from its traditional stronghold.
Punjab has given AAP a clear mandate, paving way for Mann to become the chief minister as AAP had promised before the polls. The border state has taught the ruling Congress a harsh lesson as it chose the Arvind Kejriwal-led party over the factionalism-ridden grand old party which made a mockery of the people's mandate which gave it power in 2017 despite a pro-BJP wave elsewhere in north India.
Who is Mann?
Forty-eight-year-old Mann is a two-time Sangrur MP. Kejriwal cleared his name as AAP's CM-face after receiving over 21 lakh responses from the people, with 93 per cent of them favouring his name.
Kejriwal had once lauded Mann's resolve to give up drinking.
Mann, who joined AAP in 2014 and won the Sangrur parliamentary seat by 211,721 votes, took over the reins of the party unit in 2019. This is Mann's second stint as president of the state unit.
Mann had resigned from the same post in March 2018 after AAP national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tendered an unconditional apology to Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia without consulting the AAP Punjab unit leaders.
Kejriwal and other AAP leaders, in the run-up to the February 2017 assembly elections in Punjab had been alleging that Majithia was a "drug lord" and was patronising the rampant drug trade in the state.
Formerly a popular comedian-actor, Mann, known for his trademark 'basanti' turban, a colour associated with Shaheed Bhagat Singh, has had his fair share of controversies in recent years, especially linked to his drinking habit.
Mann, who retained his parliamentary seat in 2019 by 111,111 votes, had in the presence of AAP leaders Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia publicly announced at a rally in 2019 that he had given up drinking completely.
Mann, otherwise, is a popular celebrity in Punjab, especially in the rural areas. He had contested against Shiromani Akali Dal President Sukhbir Singh Badal from the Jalalabad seat in 2017 assembly polls but lost.
Currently, AAP holds only one of the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab. In its maiden foray in the 2014 Lok Sabha battle, it won four seats in the state.
Barring Mann, all other candidates of the party forfeited their security deposits in 2019. Its vote share in the state nosedived from 23.9 to 7.4 per cent.
In the 2017 assembly polls, AAP won 20 of 117 seats and became the main opposition in the state, relegating the Akali Dal to the third place in the House.
Of the 20 AAP legislators in the outgoing Assembly, 10 have defected till date.
(With inputs from IANS)
