Akalis fought Cong, BJP won
S P Singh
Last time when Prakash Singh Badal sat in the Chief Minister's office at Punjab Civil Secretariat, a huge painting depicting the war of Chamkaur Di Garhi adorned the wall behind him. But during his five years of political wilderness, which saw him embroiled in corruption cases and terrified Akali leaders haunted by Vigilance Bureau sleuths, Captain Amarinder Singh quietly refurbished the CMO, the painting was gone, and the CM's office adorned the looks of a corporate honcho's showpiece front room.
The change was symptomatic of not just the abode of Punjab's ruler but also of the changed agenda of whosoever wanted to sit in it.
On February 27, the electronic voting machines spewed out the results, announcing a power shift in Punjab. The Akali Dal-BJP alliance won 67 of the 116 seats that went to polls (one seat faces polls on March 11), while the Congress bagged 44 seats, leaving the independents to walk with the remaining five. The Akali Dal won 48 out of 93 contested.
But these statistics only tell one that the 80-year-old Badal will get to become the CM for the fourth time. The real story, as always, lies in the details.
Akalis have virtually lost Malwa. The absolute numbers may not tell you this but just see who all lost. The pillars of Akali Dal fell by the wayside like nine pins, and a cult head's directive wiped away at least 10 or more seats from the Akali win list. The Akali Dal put up a good show in Majha and Doaba but Badal would have been happier any day had his party won more seats in Malwa rather than sweeping Doaba and Majha.
The Congress had pegged its hopes on Malwa where the SYL-blocking bill coupled with the Sacha Sauda Dera's backing did some good but not enough. And the Majha-Doaba did not make up for it.
The real winner was the BJP, returning a figure of 19 out of 23 seats contested, and ensuring that the Akali Dal remains totally at its mercy. Badal may be fond of describing the alliance as one between brothers but the BJP is a political party wedded to an ideology and accountable to the RSS, unlike the Akali Dal which has a propensity to turn religious around the time of SGPC elections and revert to the secular mode during Assembly polls.
It is no one's claim that the BJP will not demand 40-45 seats in the next elections - anyone will, after a 19/23 performance, and ten years down the line the polity may turn so secular that the Congress and the BJP will emerge as principal rivals.
But trust the political fault lines between the Akalis and BJP to create a new paradigm before we reach that stage. The Jan Sangh had withdrawn support from an Akali government on the issue of setting up of Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU). The Akalis had opposed the BJP on the issue of assimilation of Udham Singh Nagar in Uttaranchal. And the two stood poles apart on Operation Bluestar and Sant Bhindranwale.
Of the 63 seats in the Malwa belt, the Congress bagged 36. The Akalis won only 17 seats and the BJP five. In Majha belt, the Akali-BJP alliance won 22 of the 27 seats. If the Akalis had landed a landslide win, Sukhbir Singh Badal may have been catapulted to the Chief Ministrial chair, but with Malwa slipping, and Akalis not putting up such a good show, the older Badal himself seems to be set to play another innings.
For the BJP, the performance in Punjab is an icing on the cake it baked in Uttarakhand on the same day where it is all set to form a government. Badal may find the BJP demanding a considerable number of ministerships, perhaps even a deputy CM, but Sikhs may find the BJP-RSS resisting any attempt at resolving any of the religion-linked issues.
An Amarinder Singh belonging to the Congress was more equipped to celebrate Sikh centenaries, go big on opening routes to Nankana Sahib, or send a Baba Bhaniarawala packing, but a Badal surviving on BJP's mercy is least likely to prompt reforms in gurdwara administration, raise the issue of Chandigarh, ask for an all-India Gurdwara Act or demand a separate Anand Karaj act. Try imagining Badal bringing in the SYL-blocking Act with the support of the BJP!
Also, the new Akali Dal-BJP equation comes with the farmer versus urban voters conflict built-in. With Badal already having faced the heat in Malwa, where Amarinder's move on SYL has paid off, his party will have to do something dramatic to win back the peasantry, but then that is not something on top of BJP's priorities.
That Capt Amarinder Singh accepted defeat and said his party will play the role of an effective opposition is part of a ritual. That no Punjab government has ever faced an opposition so strong is the reality, and the fact that it will be headed by a man as aggressive as Amarinder Singh only lends it a touch where nothing remains predictable. Trust Amarinder Singh now to challenge Badal to move the bill for abrogating clause 5 of the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004 which protects the flow of water to Rajasthan, something the Akalis have promised prominently in their manifesto.
Even a political novice can put a good deal of money on that, and not lose.
Top Akali losers' list reads like a who's who of Punjab polity as Jagir Kaur, Balwinder Singh Bhunder, Tota Singh, Gurdev Singh Badal, Sewa Singh Sekhwan, Surjit Singh Rakhra and Sikander Singh Maluka lost, every single one of them a member of the Akali Dal's highest decision making body, the Political Affairs Committee (PAC). Bibi Jagir Kaur's defeat at the hands of the young Sukhpal Singh Khaira of the Congress came as a surprise to many. Khaira has consistently haunted Kaur ever since the death of her daughter in mysterious circumstances in 1999. Bibi, who is still facing a trial in the murder case filed by CBI, was in the global limelight as she headed the SGPC during the tercentenary celebrations of the Khalsa. Interestingly, her riches helped little as the affidavits filed before the EC showed she topped the list of wealthy candidates in the state.
From the BJP, former minister and former state BJP chief Madan Mohan Mittal also lost from Nangal, a fate he had faced in 2002 also.
Capt Kanwaljit Singh, widely tipped to be the next finance minister, a portfolio he held earlier, won from Banur with a whopping margin of 42,650, but his son Jasjit Singh lost in Kharar, the adjacent seat located also cheek-by-jowl with Chandigarh. In contrast, Capt Amarinder Singh's deputy CM, Rajinder Kaur Bhattal merely scraped through with 254 votes in Lehra Gaga, defeating Prem Singh Chandumajra of Akali Dal. Incidentally, Chandumajra, a loyalist of late G S Tohra, had dissolved his party just a few days before the polls. On his part, Amarinder Singh at Patiala seat had the highest win margin of 32,742 votes in his own party while Hira Singh Gabria of Akali Dal recorded the overall highest margin of 48,676. Badal's margin was an unimpressive in Lambi at 9,187 votes.
A number of Congress ministers in Amarinder Singh's regime lost, among them Chowdhry Jagjit Singh, Ramesh Dogra, Jagmohan Singh Kang, Avtar Henry, Harnam Dass Johar and Mohinder Singh Kaypee.
More importantly, the state president of the Congress Shamsher Singh Dullo also lost in his Khanna (reserved) assembly seat, which he had contested in place of his wife Harbans Kaur Dullo, an MLA in the previous assembly. Dullo was expected to shore up the Dalit vote bank in the state, but failed miserably as all the Dalit faces in the party lost, a fact which may make it difficult for him to retain the job. Interestingly, he was handpicked by party chief Sonia Gandhi for the job, overruling Amarinder Singh's resistance.
Late CM Beant Singh's son Tej Prakash Singh won from family's burough Payal but daughter Gurkanwal Kaur lost in Jalandhar Cantt, a seat traditionally considered safe for Congress and which had returned Beant Singh a winner in 1992.
So, watch this space for the way Punjab polity turns. For the moment, those who talked of Punjab issues, of a young Sant's memory who died in Operation Bluestar and of an old Sant who died after inking peace pacts next year, will now talk of IT sector and Adarsh schools and will work with the help and support of those whom the younger Sant derided and the older kept a distance from. Politics, they say, is a game of possibilities. In Punjab, Badal will have very few of them. For starters, there is little possibility that the Chamkaur Di Garhi painting now rotting in a storeroom will hang behind him in the Chief Ministerial office. Read the writing on the wall? May be Badal hangs a glittering photograph of one of the Railway Over Bridges he so assiduously promised to build during these polls, of course with a passion as intense as the one that fired him when he tore copies of the Constitution a few years back. That will be the comeuppance of secularism.
February 28, 2007