Punjab: Congress fault analysis

PUNJAB RESULTS-2012

Amitabh Shukla / Chandigarh

The difference between victory of SAD-BJP alliance and defeat of Congress in Punjab was less than 2.5 lakh votes or 1.77 per cent of the votes polled.

A day after Congress lost the polls, party leaders calculated that the votes polled by the rebels in around a dozen constituencies was over 2.5 lakh, more than the margin by which the party lost the closely contested polls to its arch rivals.

It was a bitter pill for the Congress leaders to swallow as some of them felt that they had not been rejected by the people but poor poll management did them in. “The party failed to realise the importance of the rebels, they were not talked to and persuaded,” a party leader said.

Informally, the Congress leaders have begun analysing the poll results and what went wrong for the party in different constituencies. Serious rebels in around a dozen constituencies were found to be a crucial factor along with the shift of dalit votes in the Doaba and Manpreet Badal’s PPP and Left party candidates getting the anti-incumbency votes instead of the Congress.

In Pathankot, party rebel Ashok Sharma got 23713 votes while official Cong candidate Raman Bhalla got 24362. The winning candidate and BJP state chief Ashwini Sharma got 42218, less than the votes polled by the two.

Then in Amritsar East, local MP Navjot Sidhu’s wife and BJP candidate Navjot Kaur would not have been able to enter the portals of the Assembly had Congress fought the elections unitedly. Party rebel Simerpreet Bhatia got 26307 votes while the official candidate Sunil Dutti managed 25964. The combined votes of both was much more than the BJP candidate. Ironically, Bhatia had been initially allotted ticket from here but she was later denied party nomination in favour of Dutti.

Congress’ calculations went haywire in Dera Bassi too where its rebel Deepinder Singh Dhillon got 51248 votes while official party nominee J S Randhawa managed a meagre 9484 votes. Not surprisingly, SAD won.

The situation was no different in Sujanpur where rebel Naresh Puri got 27312 votes, more than the official Vinay Mahajan’s 22994 votes, helping the BJP win easily. At Kotkapura, rebel Upender Sharma managed 15202 votes helping SAD win easily.

The icing on the cake for the SAD was the victory of Congress rebel and independent candidate Rajnish Kumar Babbi from Mukerian, leaving the official Cong candidate trailing at the third position.

As the details emerge, Congress is just shuddering how far it is away from power even though the Akali Dal performed poorly in 2012 as compared to 2007 in terms of vote per cent. In 2007, SAD got 37.19 per cent of the votes polled while this time, it received the support of only 34.75 per cent of the voters. Together the SAD-BJP polled 41.88 per cent in 2012 as compared to 45.4 per cent of the votes in the 2007 polls, a reduction of more than 4 per cent. In both the polls, Congress was consistently above 40 per cent, getting 40.94 per cent in 2007 and 40.11 per cent in the current election.

As the figures roll out and the reality of loss sets in, gradually, the Congress leaders are admitting that the Sanjha Morcha led by Manpreet Badal did an equal damage to them as the rebels and got almost all anti-incumbency votes which would have otherwise gone to the Congress. The Sanjha Morcha got over 6 per cent of the votes, in which the PPP alone got 5.17 per cent and the two left parties together got 1 per cent. Congress used to contest Assembly elections in Punjab in alliance with the left not long ago. In an election where every single vote became important, the Manpreet factor damaging Congress was too apparent even though state party chief Capt Amarinder Singh did not admit the damage which the Sanjha Morcha caused to his party leading to a rout.

The impressive victory of the SAD-BJP combine with a difference of 22 seats, despite a reduction in their vote percent in the state is something which the Congress leaders are finding difficult to fathom.

But again, some of them are clear that the improved performance of the Bahujan Samaj Party in the dalit bastion of Doaba led to their rout in the belt and was a crucial factor for denying them power for the second time in a row. In almost a dozen constituencies in Doaba, the BSP improved on its votes as compared to the 2007 polls and almost all of these came from the Congress quota. Though none of the BSP candidates won, they made their presence felt – to the Congress by cutting into its traditional vote base.

Congress leaders are now expecting for changes in the state to remain fighting fit ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. (March 8, 2008)

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