The Shiromani Akali Dal party, in alliance with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, faces state-assembly polls tomorrow. Punjab was once India’s richest large state, but under the SAD’s ten-year leadership it has fallen behind. It now ranks 12th of 29. The gains of its celebrated green revolution have faded, with neither industry nor higher-value service jobs to replace them. The state’s youth are relatively well-educated, and signs of frustration abound. The most visible example is an epidemic of drug addiction, which insurgent opposition parties have made the focus of a bitter campaign. At the polls the SAD faces the Aam Aadmi Party, which hopes to become a national opposition party by scoring its first statewide success. The Congress Party also stands a chance, despite its association with Indira Gandhi and the anti-Sikh violence of the 1980s. If either were to win, the dynastic family that runs the SAD would be crestfallen.