Amitabh Shukla / Chandigarh
No party has been ever repeated in
The SAD-BJP combine too is hardly bothered about the 44-year old tradition, riding on a development bandwagon and promising the moon to the people of the State to woo them again.
“It is a battle between development (by SAD-BJP) and promises of development (Congress),” a senior bureaucrat said, adding, “development is the punch-line this time round”.
Both SAD and Congress have their traditional vote bank almost intact. The SAD has not lost the vote base amongst the rural farmers and landholders, primarily Jat Sikhs. Though the Congress has retained its support base amongst the urban voters, Dalits and also a section of the backward class, it is still far away from the base it had in the 2002 polls when the party was voted to power. Despite some setbacks, the BJP has retained its core urban vote base even though its performance might not be as good as 2007 when it won 19 seats and swept the urban areas.
The Congress is also facing a dozen and half serious rebels and another dozen who may be rebels but pose no serious threat. The numbers for the Akali Dal is barely six and none for the BJP. The Congress rebels have the potential to change equations in several seats and in at least 4 seats, they are ahead than the official Congress candidate.
Projection of Captain Amarinder Singh as the chief ministerial candidate by Rahul Gandhi has also not gone well with a 2-3 contenders who refused to go anywhere after the announcement and confined themselves to their constituencies or their houses.
Being a Dalit bastion of the country with almost 31 per cent population in the SC category, a lot has changed for them post 2007 polls. There has been a consolidation of the Dalit votes after the assassination of Sant Ramanand of Dera Sachkhand Ballan, which almost has a complete hold on the Ravi Dassia community in Doaba. This could go the BSP way, affecting Congress.
Dera Sacha Sauda’s neutral stand so far will also help the Akalis in their traditional bastion of Malwa. There is no fiat for or against any party like last time when the Dera openly came out in support of the Congress, helping it win 37 of the 65 seats in Malwa. The Dera perhaps realised that “supporting clean and honest” candidates was the way forward and not dabbling in politics.
On the penultimate day, Baba Ramdev asked for a vote against the Congress but he hardly has support base to make any difference. None of the deras have so far come out openly for or against anyone.
Politically, both the SAD-BJP alliance and the Congress will have to contend with the Sanjha Morcha, led by People’s Party of
Voting percentage was almost 72 per cent in the 2007 polls, symbolising the faith of the people in the system and democratic process. Results would be known only 35 days later on March 6 but clearly development has come to define politics of the state after a long time.
With development taking the center stage, relegating other issues in the background,
If SAD-BJP wins, National Democratic Alliance will be on a song in the run up to the general elections, if not, Congress would feel comfortable going to the polls, a little over two years from now. (30.1.2012)
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