Amitabh Shukla / Chandigarh
Battling anti-incumbency, fatigue factor and a rotation system in which no party has been repeated in Punjab post 1966, Shiromani Akali Dal has shed its panthic agenda which it followed for decades and is now pitching for development and administrative reforms for the 2012 Assembly polls.
For long, Akali Dal was known for its morchas, dharm yudha, demanding more water and power from the centre, transfer of Chandigarh Punjab and greater autonomy for the state. Not any longer. Realising the aspirations of the youth, the Akalis under Sukhbir Singh Badal, have forgotten their panthic agenda and now pitching for development, the agenda on which elections have been fought recently all over the country. The changing profile of the Akalis is reflected in the fact that it has fielded 11 Hindu candidates this time while it fielded only 6 such candidates in the last election.
“Akali Dal-BJP alliance has been contesting the elections over development issues only and there would be no vendetta politics or personal attacks,” Sukhbir said, after filing his nomination papers from Jalalabad constituency. He said he was seeking votes on the basis of performance and not panthic or religious issues.
“There has been a generational shift in the Akali Dal,” arch rival Captain Amarinder Singh, state Congress President said. When asked what has kept the Akalis relevant in Punjab politics for so long, Amarinder Singh said the party had its genesis in the Gurudwara liberation struggle in the 1920s and there have been generations of selfless Akali leaders who worked only for the people. “Go to the houses of leaders like G S Tohra (former SGPC President) and (Harcharan Singh) Longowal (who signed Punjab peace accord with Rajiv Gandhi). They have such small houses,” said the Captain, who had himself joined the Akali Dal once, protesting against Operation Bluestar in 1984.
But Amarinder cautions. “This is not the same Akali Dal. The Badals are corrupt to the core and control every business in the state. This regime needs to be thrown out,” he said.
The Akalis this time round are banking on a series of administrative reforms like bringing in Right to Service where time bound delivery of over five dozen services have been ensured and also no case of corruption has been highlighted against them in their five year tenure. Even critics admit that there is no major anti-incumbency against the ruling coalition on the ground.
What is working in favour of the Akalis is that in the last three elections, the party has been able to keep its vote bank almost intact with minor fluctuations. In 1997 Assembly polls, it won 75 seats and got 37.64 per cent of votes. Though its vote share came down to 31.08 per cent in the 2002 polls, it still managed to win 41 seats even as the Congress formed government in the state. In the 2007 polls, the vote percentage rose to 37.19 percent and the party won 48 seats and formed government with ally BJP. So there has been no major swing for or against the party in the last three elections.
With the Akali support base of the Jat Sikh peasantry in the rural areas intact, party sources say that this time they will be working vigorously in the Malwa region, its traditional stronghold, which was dented by the Congress in the 2007 polls. Congress won 37 out of 65 seats in this region. If the Akalis manage to do well in Malwa in the 2012 polls, they could well be staring at power in Chandigarh. But if there is a slip like the last time, the opposition benches would be theirs for sure.
The 2007 performance of Congress in Malwa was attributed to the appeal of Dera Sacha Sauda to vote for the party. In this belt, the Dera has considerable influence on the dalit and backward caste voters belonging to both the Sikh and Hindu communities. So far, the dera has not taken a call on the issue and not issued any instruction to its followers.
If the SAD-BJP lost out in Malwa, they made it up by an unprecedented victory in Majha (border area) where the alliance won 23 out of 27 seats, pushing the Congress to the margins. In the Doaba region, again the SAD-BJP did well winning 20 of the 25 seats.
Due to its impressive performance in the Malwa region, Congress denied the Akali Dal the privilege of having the numbers on its own and it was dependent on the BJP for majority unlike the previous elections. Also the 2007 election was unique in a sense that for the first time, a party which had won a majority of seats in Malwa could not form the government in the state. SAD would be doing what it can to change this scenario in Malwa. (16.1.2012)
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