A January 2017 survey report gives the BJP a clear majority of 206-211 seats, while another survey puts the party at second with only 130-140 in Uttar Pradesh where caste factor plays a critical role. Non-Yadav OBCs have the highest votes at 32 per cent and Yadav OBCs 8 per cent. Dalits, Muslims and upper caste Hindus have 20 per cent each. So, a 30 per cent vote share would be clear majority. The BJP has to steal non-Yadav OBC, non-Jatav Dalit votes of SP and BSP. The upper caste Hindus would be easy prey. All the same, Akhilesh Yadav has become an iconic leader. The youth and literate communities will vote for him blindly as they consider the management graduate from Australia decent and considerate for he is suave, sensible and a charmingly winsome orator. He is forward looking and understands modern technology. Father Mulayam, despite being the founder of the SP, is just no match. The recent father-son battle has convinced the SP cadres that Akhilesh is correct and Mulayam less correct. The ‘bicycle’ symbol has been pocketed by the Akhilesh faction. So, the BJP seems to have lost some ground as the Akhilesh craze is sweeping across the literate. If the Congress joins hands with Akhilesh, the BJP would face the biggest battle in history.
In Punjab, the BJP has lost considerable popularity due to alliance with the Akali Dal, which has gone to dogs. Expert observers say the paradise is not going to be regained soon unless miracles happen. The anti-incumbency factor has reached such enormous proportions that people are waiting impatiently to smash the SAD-BJP outfit known as a ‘loot-n-koot’ gang, meaning they rob the public exchequer by guile and strike all protestors hard to dust by brazenly abusing every available State machinery. Farmer suicides have risen. Rampant drug abuse, routinely ignored as a non-issue, has enraged even the illiterate workers. Agriculture has slowed; industrialisation has declined badly. Healthcare machinery is just not in place or in a shambles. People are so confused that living gurus have emerged as saviours, resulting in rising tensions between new religious ‘deras’ or sects, and more orthodox Sikhs.
The Badal clan controls the Government system like feudal lords right from the Cabinet of Ministers to the ground level of the police station and further the Gurudwara. There are 18 Ministers, five of whom are Badal clan: CM Parkash Singh Badal, Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal, Parkash Badal’s son-in-law Adesh Partap Kairon, Sukhbir Badal’s brother-in-law Bikram Majithia and Janmeja Singh Sekhon. These five control 22 Government departments, including key portfolios such as home, vigilance, taxation and power. In contrast, the remaining 13 Ministers look after a total of 32 departments, some of them embarrassingly minor such as printing and stationery.
Hindi movie Udta Punjab is a portrayal of the real Punjab of today. The BJP would lose only for bad company, which is pity. Amarinder Singh with induction of Navjot Singh Sidhu constitutes a big plus for the Congress as a much lesser evil.
Twelve years ago, the Badals snatched all power from Jathedar Gurcharan Singh Tohra, head of the Shiromani Prabandhak Gurudwara Committee, to take complete control of the religious outfit. Journalist Kanwar Sandhu has said, “The Akali Dal hasn’t had a rival bloc to the Badals.” Anyone who “opposes them gets dismissed from the party or defeated in elections.” The hegemony has methodically facilitated a reordering of the relationship between politicians. The corporate- business houses face demands from Akali Dal leaders for a share of their profits; people close to the Badals or the Akali Dal dominate cash-generating industries like stone crushing and liquor distribution and more. The worst part of all this is that the Badal regime has blurred the lines between religion and politics. Equally shocking is the fact that the Badals have full control over television news in Punjab including message content.
From 2012, the biggest cable distributor Fastway Transmission arbitrarily stopped beaming some channels which carried anti-Akali Dal stories including ‘Punjab Today’, ‘Day and Night’. Channels like PTC, G-Next Media, owned by Gur-Baz Media which are fully controlled by Sukhbir Badal’s Orbit Resorts are promoted indiscriminately. The vernacular news content is provided by a company controlled by the Deputy CM. Next is the grave issue of ‘Halka’ meaning in Punjabi Assembly constituency. The Akalis have subverted the democratic structure insanely. In the 2012 Assembly elections, the Akali Dal won 56 constituencies in the 117-member Assembly. The vanquished candidates were rehabilitated as the Halka bosses in their constituencies. “In constituencies, the Halka boss wields real power, where the legislator is treated as nobody, as told by Jagrup Singh Sekhon, a professor at Amritsar’s Guru Nanak Dev University. According to Master Mohan lal, a BJP leader and a former Transport Minister in the Akali Government revealed that the decision to vest powers with the Halka in-charge was taken by the executive committee of the Akali Dal. The State Government directed the police and the administration only to follow the Halka order and ignore every other, no matter from whom.
The fallout is clear: Non-Akali, opposition MlAS are maligned systematically despite doing great work. People are even forced to go to the Halka for domestic matters, including divorce. The police won’t file a case without a letter from the Halka in such cases.
Spiralling violence has hurt the entire State. For over a decade, it has been suffering fierce insurgency and State-sanctioned violence. A Punjab human rights organisation has made public a fact that the Government granted one Ponty Chadha ‘wholesale liquor licencee’ for the entire State. This liquor baron formed his own private army to wage war against all other liquor traders, desi and foreign, for not affiliating with his organisation which ran like a mafia with handpicked gangsters. Researcher Nicolas Martin wrote in his Economic and Political Weekly article, “The ruling SAD politicians use harassment and intimidation when they seek to secure their party’s stranglehold over particular panchayats or when they are determined to give power to a particular village leader.” The violence can be savage. Shiv lal, an erstwhile ‘Halka in-charge’ of the sub-division Abohar and one of Punjab’s biggest liquor barons, has been named as accused in a murder FIR. A Dalit was dismembered, his hands and legs chopped off, in Shiv lal’s farmhouse. The Akali Government has charged nearly 150 people under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. When a sedition accused gets bail in one month, any UAPA-linked accused does not get bail for six months. A disgruntled Akali Minister on request of anonymity said, “Phones of all MlAs are tapped.”
The bureaucracy is equally stricken with fear due to “inconvenient postings,” as reported by KR lakhanpal, former Finance and Chief Secretary. “But now, people apprehend bodily harm or a tight vigilance case. The administration having been enfeebled to the extent of subservience, the only recourse people have are the Akali MlA, the Halka and the ‘Dera’ power centres never elected, so absolutely unaccountable. A recent article by IP Singh in a newspaper indicates some glimpse of open dissent, “In Punjab, there have been quite a few instances of Akali leaders and SGPC members having been chased away by protestors.” Even orthodox Sikhs and farmers, who form the party’s core, are beginning to voice protest courageously.
And it is this simmering anger that is responsible for the large swings in favour of Manpreet Singh Badal’s Punjab People’s Party and the Aam Aadmi Party, apart from growing trust for the Congress as Sidhu has come in.
The BJP is likely to win Manipur and Uttarakhand. It may improve its count in UP and may make a marginal comeback in Goa.
*One Nihar Ranjan Beura, an IITian professional of great repute has descended to fight the panchayat elections in Kendrapada district, which is big news. Hopefully, the Naveen regime would facilitate his entry into the local self-governance system by rising above party politics. Naveen must know that people have not taken well the strategy of star campaigners begging votes for lower-tier candidates that are expected to remain free of linkage to any political party. Independent ordinary neighbourhood social workers have to make an entry, which was the Mahatma’s dream of Gram Swaraj. The BJD is still enjoying a monopoly status. Some principled stand will strengthen the outfit further, never enfeeble it. The so-called stars, mostly cheap meteors who know nothing of people’s aspirations, better be dropped and sent back home. That will boost the BJD’s public image beyond imagination. Or else, the joker Papu Pompom effect’ may occur yet again!
(The writer is a core member of Transparency International, Odisha)