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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 borough 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
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This is an excerpt from the wonderful poem penned by my
friend H.S.Bawa of Ajit newspaper. It is undoubtedly one
of the best writings to have come out of the entire
election coverage. |
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