Punjab 2027 Election Battle: How Religious Yatras Are Building Political Networks

The Punjab Assembly election is still months away, but one part of the campaign may already have begun, not from election stages but through pilgrimage buses, religious processions and yatras moving from village to village.

The Bhagwant Mann government's Mukh Mantri Tirath Yatra continues to take people free of cost to religious destinations. According to information, more than 1.3 lakh people had already participated by April 2026, and the government is expanding the programme further.

At almost the same time, the Miri-Piri Khalsa March, organised by the SGPC under the patronage of Akal Takht Sahib, completed its first phase at Takht Sri Damdama Sahib on August 3. Its second phase is scheduled to begin on August 23. Its declared objectives are religious: spreading the philosophy of Miri-Piri, strengthening Sikh consciousness and connecting younger generations with Sikh institutions.

Meanwhile, the BJP is carrying sacred soil from Guru Ravidas Ji's birthplace in Varanasi through its mandal-level Kalash Yatras in Punjab, particularly as part of its outreach to the Ravidassia community.

Congress, although not presently running a comparable religious pilgrimage, has been discussing a statewide Unity Bus Yatra to take its senior leadership across Assembly constituencies before the 2027 election.

Waris Punjab De has revived the Khalsa Vaheer model that first brought Amritpal Singh into direct contact with Sikh youth across Punjab in 2022. It created contact with young supporters and religious networks well before the 2024 Lok Sabha election too.

Different organisations are carrying different messages and operating within different religious and political traditions. But one organisational principle connects them: a yatra does not merely move people; it builds a network. That network can later become politically valuable.

Parkash Singh Badal had already tested the model, and Punjab has seen this before.

In 2015, when Parkash Singh Badal was Chief Minister, the Punjab government and the SGPC jointly organised the Dharmik Darshan Yatra, taking historical relics and weapons associated with the Sikh Gurus through major cities across Punjab in a specially designed vehicle.

For devotees, it was an opportunity for darshan. From an organisational perspective, however, every district through which the yatra passed needed arrangements. Local SGPC members became involved. Political leaders attended receptions. Village organisations mobilised people. Workers arranged langar, transport and gatherings.

The procession therefore became something larger: a continuous chain of contact between leadership, religious institutions, local organisers and ordinary people. The Badal government subsequently also ran a free pilgrimage programme. That was an exceptionally strong mobilisation structure.

Yet Badal's experience also provides an important warning. Despite religious outreach and extensive organisational mobilisation, the SAD-BJP alliance was decisively defeated in the 2017 election. That shows that a yatra can activate a political network, but it cannot guarantee votes.

The Bhagwant Mann government has taken the pilgrimage model in another direction.

Its Mukh Mantri Tirath Yatra is a government welfare programme rather than a political procession. It is open across communities, and the government pays for travel, accommodation and related facilities. By April this year, over 1.3 lakh pilgrims had benefited, including more than 97,000 in the second phase alone.

Its political significance lies in the structure required to implement it. Beneficiaries must be registered. Groups must be organised locally. Buses must leave from areas. Officials interact with families. Ministers and representatives flag off pilgrim groups.

The pilgrimage may be religious. The benefit is welfare, but the political recall can still be real.

The Miri-Piri Khalsa March presents a more sensitive case because it is an SGPC-led religious initiative under the patronage of Akal Takht, not formally a Shiromani Akali Dal Badal (SAD) election campaign.

When a major procession travels through Punjab, local gurdwaras become active. SGPC members mobilise. Religious organisations participate. Volunteers arrange receptions and langars. Thousands of people gather.

SAD leaders, including Sukhbir Singh Badal and Harsimrat Kaur Badal, have also participated in receptions for the march. At Badal village, Sukhbir used the occasion to speak about protecting Sikh institutions and Panthic unity.

This does not establish that the march was designed for SAD's electoral benefit. But it is reasonable to ask whether a weakened Akali Dal could indirectly benefit from the reactivation of the same Panthic grassroots ecosystem from which it historically drew organisational strength.

The BJP's present Guru Ravidas Kalash Yatra provides perhaps the clearest openly party-organised example.

Soil brought from Guru Ravidas Ji's birthplace at Seer Goverdhanpur in Varanasi is being carried through the BJP mandal areas in Punjab. In Jalandhar, the processions have already travelled through several Assembly constituencies.

For the BJP, this can serve two purposes. It provides religious and cultural outreach towards the Ravidassia community while simultaneously forcing the party's Mandal machinery to become active. Whether it converts into Ravidassia votes is an entirely different question.

Punjab has nearly 32 per cent of the Dalit population, the largest in the country. The Ravidassia community constitutes about 26 per cent of the state's Dalit population.

Congress currently appears to be taking the more conventional political route.

Its proposed Unity Bus Yatra is aimed at taking senior leaders across Punjab and, importantly, projecting unity in a party troubled by internal differences. Reports suggest Congress wants the programme to cover as many Assembly constituencies as possible.

Congress therefore understands the same principle even without attaching religion to it: leaders have to get on the road if they want workers to get back on the ground.

The real political value of Punjab's yatras lies in what remains after the procession has moved on. Who organised the reception? Who brought people from a village? Who arranged the buses? Who contacted the gurdwara committee or community leader? Who created the WhatsApp groups? Who collected phone numbers? And crucially, does that network remain active six months later when election tickets are distributed and polling booth teams are formed?

That is where the political dividend, if any, will emerge.

Punjab 2027 may, therefore, be witnessing a new version of an old political technique. AAP has the advantage of the government-beneficiary network. SAD has access to a historic Panthic-SGPC ecosystem. The BJP is building Mandal-based religious and community outreach. Congress is preparing its own political road mobilisation. Waris Punjab De is trying to sustain a youth-driven religious mobilisation network.

The names are different. The routes are different. Even their intentions may be different. But the organisational lesson is the same.

In Punjab today, a yatra can begin with faith, welfare, identity or politics, but by the time it passes through hundreds of villages, it can also leave behind something every party wants before an election: a network. Whether that network becomes a vote bank is another matter.

Parkash Singh Badal's 2017 defeat already proved that religious mobilisation can open political doors, but it cannot make voters walk through them.

For Punjab's parties heading towards 2027, that may be the most important lesson of all.