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TICKET TO RIDE
Sharam hum ko magar nahi aati

S P Singh

Chandigarh: On what issue is the battle to rule Punjab being fought in the great democracy that India is? Here is the elusive answer: Ticket.  

If you have got a ticket to ride, stick to your party, or jump ideological horses overnight, and emerge from the blue turbaned sea to shout Congress zindabad. If you still don't succeed, you can always ride the elephant and shout hail Ambedkar, hail Mayawati. 

Ideology is dead in Punjab, and this election buried any remnant of such a ghost as party loyalty. 

Gurbachan Singh Babbehali paid Rs 5,000 fee to apply for the Congress ticket, but after drawing a blank, defected to join SAD and got the Akali ticket to contest Gurdaspur seat against Congress nominee Pritam Singh Bhinder. The Rs 5000 of course is gone, ditto for ideology.  

Nirmal Singh, the Akali Dal's sitting MLA from Shutrana in Patiala, did some serious thinking just when the ticket distribution started and deduced that the Akali Dal was anti-people. It is just that he hadn't realised the truth in five years. As soon as he did, he quit and joined the Congress, was promptly rewarded with a ticket for such intellectual exertions but will face the same man he did last time -- Hamir Singh Ghagga. 

Ghagga, of course, is no innocent soul. Like Nirmal, he too faced sudden ideological revelation but in a different direction. He found that Congress policies were anti-people and joined the Akali Dal, bagging also a ticket. 

Clearly, the parties made a switch of candidates. Ideology be damned, and buried. 

Gurjant Singh Kuttiwal saw himelf a dyed-in-the-wool Congressman, but when the party wanted to leave the Pucca Kalan seat to the CPI in 2002, he suddenly found that Marx and Lenin were his real idols, waived a red flag, joined the CPI, got the ticket ten minutes after the ideological jump, won the seat, had another ideological convulsion, quit the CPI and re-joined the Congress. This time, this twice-anointed Congressman applied for the ticket, but minutes after refusal, he found great merits in the policies of the Akali Dal, and has lost no time in receiving precious marigold flowers from Sukhbir Singh Badal. By that time, of course, Akalis had already given the ticket to Darshan Singh Kotfatah. 

Kotfatah got the ticket because Akali Dal's Makhan Singh feared that he may not get the ticket and jumped over to become a Congressman, a successful one because he got the ticket. 

Sukhdarshan Singh Marar of course is a somersault champion, 360 degrees, and all the way again. In 2002, he won as an Akali rebel, and then re-joined the Akali Dal before switching to Congress. Then, last year, he announced a 48-hour deadline for the Akalis to grab him again, but Prakash Singh Badal didn't respond, so he went to the Congress. Two days after the announcement of elections in Punjab, Marar suddenly found that Congress was no good, was in fact an enemy of Punjab, and Prakash Singh Badal was an epitome of godliness. He is back with the Akalis, and has a ticket to ride. 

Marar, an epitome of sacrifice, said he did not join the SAD on the promise of getting a party ticket. Reliable sources say he had a straight face, and Akalis must have felt genuinely moved by his ideological exertions to make him their nominee. 

Harminder Singh Gill always maintained that Congress was an enemy of the Sikhs, and was responsible for the attack on Golden Temple. He headed the militant AISSF. But soon, political aspirations brought some clarity and he saw the great merits in Amarinder Singh's regime. Now, he has been rewarded for attaining such intellectual clarity, and will face Adesh Pratap Singh Kairon in Patti on Congress ticket. Kairons of course are masters of ideological somersaults. 

Rajpura's MLA Raj Khurana swore by Sonia Gandhi and Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, because Amarinder Singh more often than not, swore at him. Finally, he quit the party and joined the BJP, got a saffron ticket and has realised, wonder of wonders, that Sonia Gandhi is a foreigner and SAD-BJP alliance is best for Punjab. 

Dhanwant Singh Dhuri missed the bus the way people miss the trains going via Dhuri because they are never on time. He fought the 1997 poll as a rebel Congressman after the seat was left to the CPI, and won, then rejoined the Congress, but in 2002, he again had to fight as a rebel because the seat was again left to the CPI. Unfortunately, he lost. (The man who won on CPI ticket of course joined the Congress.) Dhuri this time joined the Congress and paid Rs 5,000 fee to apply for the ticket, but by the time he was refused, Gaganjit Singh Barnala was out of his rape case troubles and had gotten the Akali ticket. So Dhuri made one big jump, climbed atop an elephant and became a BSP candidate from Dhuri. He knows people don't have an elephantine memory, and is a somersault champion of some repute.   

But then, perhaps, they all have a reason. Aren’t all of us somehow somersaulters? May be not champion stuff, but even then…?

Jan 26, 2007

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