Development battles kinship: Punjab Battlelines drawn

The die has been cast and battlelines drawn. Punjab is inching towards the D Day, when voters would be the king and would make a choice - whether the existing Akali Dal-BJP government is good enough to carry for another five years or Congress needs to replace the government to give a fresh momentum to the state.

While Akali Dal has so far declared 86 of the 94 seats it would contest, its ally Bhartiya Janata Party has declared all its 23 candidates. Congress was last to open its cards and so far has come out with its list of 114. Sanjha Morcha led by Punjab People’s Party chief Manpreet Badal would also be in the fray and so will be the Bahujan Samaj Party which once showed promise in the home state of its founder Kanshi Ram but is now on a downward spiral.

The choice would not be easy this time round. The electoral tradition where a government never comes back to power after five years would also not cast a shadow on the outcome. There has been no visible anger against the ruling dispensation not has there been any anger as such against the Congress at the state level. Expectations of the people have been rising and it is not easy to fulfill that. A positive outcome for the Akalis would indicate that the expectations have been met, a negative result obviously would suggest that the expectations were much greater than delivery.

At the macro level, SAD-BJP has launched an advertisement blitzkrieg and development has emerged as the only agenda on which the polls would be fought. While the ruling government is highlighting what all it did and how it changed the face of Punjab in the last five years, Congress through its fictional characters Jeeta and Jaggi, is trying to puncture all that the government claims in its advertisement campaign.

But at the micro level, a lot of issues would come into play – urban versus rural, role of the dissidents, rebellions and revolts in either of the two main contestants, outside candidates being imposed, caste factor, influence of Dera factor, internal contradictions, etc.

For the first time, the Akal Dal would face a formidable rebel in Manpreet Singh Badal, the estranged nephew of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. He has already pitted his father and CM’s brother, Gurdas Badal from Lambi who is set to give a tough fight to his elder brother. His parent party has not been able to find a strong candidate to take him head on in Gidderbaha so far.

But given the support base of the Akalis among the Jat Sikhs, Manpreet is unlikely to cut into the traditional votes of Akali Dal in rural areas. Jat Sikhs may be around 20 per cent of the population but command a far larger influence due to being the “dominant caste” as sociologist M N Srinivas has pointed out in his voluminous study. So if Manpreet indeed manages to emerge as a “vote spoiler”, it would primarily be in the urban areas and here BJP and Congress would lose some of their vote bank rather than the Akalis who are in any case on a weak footing in the urban areas, dominated by the Hindus.

Apart from Manpreet, Akalis have other formidable rebels too. Former minister Chiranji Lal Garg bid adieu to the party and so did youth Akali leader Gurpartap Singh Tikka, Sirhind sitting legislator Didar Singh Bhatti, general sectary of Youth Akali Dal Satbir Singh Khatra and Anadpur Sahib sitting MLA Sant Ajit Singh. One candidate Balwinder Singh Bains from Ludhiana (south) was replaced after he revolted when his brother did not get party ticket. Another youth Akali leader, Satvinder Singh Tohra, has also revolted and announced his candidature from Patiala (rural) as independent. In Sirhind, sitting MLA Didar Singh Bhatti has joined the People’s Party of Punjab (PPP) after he was denied party ticket. So the Akalis have their quota of problems beyond Manpreet.

Bahujan Samaj Party has failed to translate the huge presence of Dalits (almost 31 per cent) into votes in the state from where its founder Kanshi Ram hailed from. The party made an impressive beginning in 1992 by winning nine seats but since then, it won only 1 seat in 1997 and none in 2002 and 2007 polls. Not even its most vocal supporter would vouch for a better performance this time even though it would be contesting all 117 seats. Dalits in Punjab are much better off and have not historically faced the same social discrimination and inequality as in Uttar Pradesh. Moreover, they have been co-opted by Congress and the Akali Dal and there is no apparent sense of political deprivation amongst the community. The dalits here are divided by religion (Sikhs and Hindus) and sub-castes and look for political expression in the existing parties rather than the UP-centric, BSP.

Congress had its momentum going by a series of meetings of state party chief Captain Amarinder Singh in every nook and corner of the state. His over three dozen meetings connected well with the people until the drama which unfolded in ticket distribution. For a fortnight, the ticket hopefuls and the leaders were forced to go to New Delhi to lobby for party nomination, clearly a setback at a time when they needed to be in the state and their constituency. The Akalis campaigned unchallenged in this period and also hammered home the point that decisions in Congress are taken in New Delhi rather than in Chandigarh, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Jalandhar or Bathinda as is the case with the regional party which it is.

Then all hell broke lose in Congress after ticket distribution. What to speak of sitting MLAs, former MLAs and former ministers, even the brother of PCC chief Amarinder Singh, Malwinder Singh, broke his almost four decade old ties with Congress and joined the Akalis. This is one setback which Congress is not going to forget in a hurry. It is a disaster on the eve of elections which would definitely have a shadow on the polls. Almost two dozen other ticket contenders in Congress have raised a banner of revolt against their party and would either contest as independents, as PPP candidates or simply sit at home and plot the defeat of the official party candidate so that their chances remain alive for the nest elections.

Kinship factor played such an important role in ticket distribution that there are hardly any newcomers in Congress politics of Punjab –most of them being sons, daughters, brothers, son-in laws, relatives of bigger established leaders or their camp followers. Coupled with the over dependence on the “high command culture” where tickets are given due to machinations and intrigue, the message on the eve of polls is rather negative and loaded against the party. Congress leaders say that rebellion and revolt is natural after ticket distribution. It may be true. But this time it is at a much larger scale, something which the party did not imagine. It is much more and widespread at every level in Congress than its rivals Akali Dal and BJP.

So has the Congress lost the plot when it mattered the most? It would be premature to say so as the campaign is yet to begin in right earnest. Due to severe cold in Punjab, cadres and supporters have not yet ventured out in large numbers to give colour to the campaign. Congress could still make it up but now it requires extra effort after the fiasco of ticket distribution followed by revolt and rebellion on a much bigger scale than Congress faced in 2002 when it came to power.

(8.1.2012)

(The writer is Senior Editor, The Pioneer Chandigarh)

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