Haunted by the mistakes committed in the past by others, the BJP strategist-cum-think tank Arun Jaitley on Friday found himself biting the dust in Amritsar.
Contesting Parliamentary polls for the first time ever in his three-decade long political career, Jaitley failed to take advantage of the “Modi wave”, which saw the BJP getting majority in the 2014 general elections.The leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley, has lost to Punjab’s former chief minister and senior Congress leader Capt Amarinder Singh in Amritsar by a whooping margin of more than one lakh votes due to non-performance of the BJP’s previous incumbent and three-time MP Navjot Singh Sidhu.
Jaitley’s defeat, amidst victory for the saffron party in the rest of the country, is also being seen as a vote of no-confidence against the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-BJP combine, especially against the local leaders of the combine.With the ruling combine having six Assembly segments out of nine in Amritsar constituency, Jaitley lost in all.
Persuaded by the SAD with an assurance to secure an easy win for him, Jaitley was made to face his first poll drubbing for the sins of others, especially the SAD Minister and Majitha MlA Bikram Singh Majithia, and BJP Minister and Amritsar North MlA Anil Joshi. Political analysts attribute Jaitley’s defeat to antipathy among the electors against these leaders and the ruling combine. Besides, they added, the people gave out a clear cut message that no matter how big the face any party field, people want performance.
Notably, the Amritsar electors have lot of resentment for the ruling combine’s decision of imposing series of taxes, especially on traders, the prevailing lawlessness and drug menace, absence of basic facilities to the residents, among others.
Jaitley had to pay the price for being an “outsider” as projected by his Congress rival Capt Amarinder who is a better known name and a Sikh face for the voters of Amritsar.
Being a non-Sikh, it seems, has also cost Jaitley a defeat as Amritsar has approximately 65 per cent of Sikh population, and here the Sikh factor plays a major role among people in deciding their representative.
BJP’s Sidhu was party’s lone Sikh face at the national level, and many believed that party’s move to get away with the cricketer-turned-politician and replacing him with a Hindu face was the combine’s wrong move. Jaitley’s loss has come as one dark cloud in the BJP’s largely blue sky at a time when he was projected as the next Finance Minister and “Punjab’s voice in the Parliament”.
What is more, this defeat has come as a major embarrassment more for the SAD, than its ally — BJP. It was the SAD’s senior leadership, including party patron and Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, who persuaded Jaitley to contest polls from Amritsar, little knowing what Congress has in store for them. Expecting an “easy win” for Jaitley, Congress’ strategically move to field Capt Amarinder from the holy city sent shock waves in the Akalis-BJP camp.
For them, Amritsar seat had become the “prestige” battle, leaving behind another significant seat for Akalis- Bathinda, where sitting MP and Badal’s daughter-in-law was facing his estranged nephew and former finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal.
SAD had deployed party’s key election strategist Bikram Majithia in Amritsar — which eventually worked against Jaitley. Even, the votes were sought for Jaitley while projecting him as the one who would ensure smooth flow of funds to the State, and hold a significant position in the Union Cabinet.
In an after effect, State local Bodies Minister Anil Joshi put in his papers owning moral responsibility for Jaitley’s defeat. “It was not a defeat of Arun Jaitley, since he is man of high character, and neat and clean image. In fact, this is defeat of local leadership which couldn’t turn up as per the desired expectations. It is my failure as well as of the local leadership,” said Joshi.
He said that “owning moral responsibility for Jaitley’s defeat”, he had submitted his resignation to State party president Kamal Sharma to further forward it to Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. “I don’t deserve Ministry in the Punjab Government after what happened here,” he said.
Accepting defeat, Kamal Sharma told The Pioneer, “We accept the people’s mandate...despite Modi wave and hard work of the party cadre, Jaitley’s defeat is unfortunate. Even though Badal saab repeatedly appealed the people for not voting against the combine for the failures of the State Government, people voted against Jaitley which shows that how much resentment people have with the ruling regime.”
“The party would analyse the reasons which led to defeat...both the alliance partners would sit together to review the results. As of now, it is hard to say which factors worked against the candidates’ defeat,” he added.Upbeat, Capt Amarinder said that a “disconnected” SAD leadership had “misled” the BJP leader into contesting from Amritsar.
The former Punjab CM also said that battles cannot be fought being on the defensive.“You can never win a battle being on defensive, you have to get on offensive and put the opponent on defensive. I was always in offensive mode, whether in Army or in politics. So we put Arun Jaitley on the defensive, we put (SAD leader Bikram Singh) Majithia on defensive,” he said.