Amitabh Shukla / Chandigarh
It is a contest between Parkash Singh Badal’s humility and the arrogance of Captain Amarinder Singh, a senior BJP leader summed up the pre poll scenario in poll bound Punjab .
He said the personality of the two leaders would make a difference in the state where SAD is looking for pro-incumbency votes while Congress is unsuccessfully trying to build an anti-incumbency environment.
The BJP believes that the strike rate of the Akalis would be better as the party has been able to hold on to its core vote bank which has remained with it through thick and thin. BJP, which won 19 of the 23 seats it contested in the 2007 polls, would get a few seats less but still it would not be much different from the last polls. “We cannot win by an innings all the time,” admitted the BJP leader, adding that the strike rate of the party would not go down significantly.
State BJP leadership and think tank within the party believe that “Amarinder has squandered the natural advantage of anti-incumbency” and at this point of time there is no visible anger against the SAD-BJP government which could translate into votes against the coalition.
“For anti-incumbency, you have to annoy and irritate the people. This has not happened,” a senior party leader said.
BJP, which sees Punjab as an important electoral landmark in the run-up to the 2014 general elections, has a lot of hope from the general electoral trend in the rest of the country where the state governments which have performed and have a clean image have been voted back to power.
This includes Raman Singh government in Chhatisgarh, Shivraj Singh Chauhan in Madhya Pradesh, NDA government headed by Nitish Kumar in Bihar , Sheila Dikshit winning three times in a row in Delhi Gujarat and to some extent Bhupinder Singh Hooda government in neighbouring Haryana.
In the recently held state assembly elections, changes took place only in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Rajasthan, giving the NDA in Punjab hope that people have by and large shown preference for continuity provided the “twin criteria” of performance and clean image is there.
BJP leaders, involved in the nitty-gritty of Punjab polls, believe that the Dera factor in the Malwa region would be crucial in determining the poll outcome and are hopeful amid indications that unlike in 2007, Dera Sacha Sauda, headed by Gurmeet Ram Rahim would not issue a fiat for or against any party. In the previous polls, the Dera asked its followers to vote for the Congress. Not surprisingly, Congress managed to get an impressive 37 seats out of 65 in the region which has been considered a traditional bastion of the Akalis.
Apart from the Deras, BJP is also closely looking at the performance of the Sanjha Morcha led by People’s Party of Punjab President Manpreet Badal, particularly the Left parties which a part of the alliance. Apart from PPP, the Sanjha morcha comprises the left parties which used to have quite a base in Punjab some time back. BJP is looking at how many votes the left parties get in the 20 odd seats they are contesting.
Party leaders reason that whatever votes the Left parties get, would be from the quota of Congress and not from BJP or SAD. “In a close contest, the votes which the left parties get would be crucial in determining the outcome,” a party leader said. He said in the 2007 polls, BJP lost 4 seats out of 23 and the Left did badly in all these seats. But the perception that Sanjha Morcha could do well, good performance of Left would adversely affect Congress.
BSP too would be a factor in the Punjab polls and if it is able to improve upon the 4.16 per cent votes it got last time, SAD-BJP alliance would benefit. Congress and BSP have a common vote base in Punjab and the good performance of one is linked to the bad performance of the other. Party chief Mayawati has planned four rallies in the state, beginning Sunday, to improve on the chances of the “elephant”. (21.1.2012)
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