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Assembly elections : Candidates’ selection, a tough task for BJP, Congress

	January 21, 2002

Major national parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress are finding it difficult to finalise the names of their candidates for the Assembly elections in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. While in UP, the BJP had been forced to drop many of its sitting MLAs taking the “winnability factor” into account, in Punjab, the Congress is faced with revolt over the final list. The BJP has the tough task to balance the list with fair representation for all castes in UP and Punjab, the Congress which has a fighting chance to oust the Akalis from power in Punjab, is plagued by overenthusiastic workers wanting to contest. Both the BJP and the Congress have their prestige at stake. Retaining power in UP is vital to the stability of the BJP-led Government at the Centre. Chief Minister Rajnath Singh who has done his bit to boost the image of the party in the last few months with a variety of sops is taking on the challenge of Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav who is fighting on a secular and caste plank Besides, Rajnath Singh has to take into account the demands from BJP allies for the ticket at the Centre like the Rashtriya Lok Dal headed by Ajit Singh and Indian National Lok Dal headed by O.P. Chautala.

Trouble is brewing for the BJP in western UP considered the stronghold of Ajit Singh who wants the lion’s share of the Assembly seats in the region. His arch rival Chautala is courting Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati, the move which is worrying the BJP leadership. Besides, the BJP is facing revolt from the dropped MLAs in the final list and already a few ministers have parted ways and are threatening to sabotage the party chances, contesting as Independent candidates or on rival parties’ symbols.

The BJP has yet to finalise its poll manifesto and the issues to be highlighted. There are clear signs that with the reduction of tension on the border and the possibility of a war with Pakistan receding, terrorism is no longer such a hot topic for a poll campaign. With nearly a month left for the assembly polls, terrorism will fail as a catchword to woo the voters. The entire BJP strategy of exploiting terrorism and the war against it is petering out. The Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) and the opposition to it by other parties too has also lost its sting . The Union Government has re-promulgated POTO and, in fact, has to defend its decision as the Congress and the Samajwadi parties are planning to attack it as being anti-minority with possibilities of misuse by the law and order authorities.

That leaves only the temple construction as a poll plank by the BJP. From the third week of January, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), is whipping up the temple issue in a big way. There is no doubt that the BJP will not do anything to stop the VHP from carrying on its campaign for a temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya. While reaffirming that the BJP will not use the temple plank, it has also been made clear by Rajnath Singh and Union Ministers like Uma Bharati that if the opposition parties are bent upon raising the Babri mosque demolition issue to hit out at the BJP, they will have no option than to defend the temple construction.



UP scenario

In a bid to refurbish its image and overcome the anti-incumbency factor, the BJP has dropped 41 sitting MLAs, including three ministers, for the UP Assembly elections.

Announcing its first list of 309 candidates, the BJP said it was leaving 70-75 seats for its allies in the 403-member House.In Uttaranchal, where it is contesting all the 70 seats, the party came out with a list of 64 candidates dropping former Chief Minister Nityanand Swamy and three ministers. Later, the BJP decided to allow Swamy to contest the Assembly polls from Laxman Chowk. The party is projecting Rajnath Singh as its Chief Ministerial candidate in Uttar Pradesh and Bhagat Singh Koshiyari in Uttaranchal, the party spokesman Sunil Shastri told reporters in New Delhi.

Meanwhile, three Uttar Pradesh ministers resigned from the Rajnath Singh government after they were denied tickets to contest. Minister for Rural Engineering and Minor Irrigation Markandey Chand, Minister for Rural Development Rajendra Singh Patel — both belonging to the Lok Janshakti Party — and Minister for Transport Virendra Singh of the Loktantrik Congress sent their resignation letters to Chief Minister Rajnath Singh. Chand wanted to contest the Dhuriapar seat in Gorakhpur, while Patel had sought the ticket from Bindki in Fatehpur.

Virendra Singh, the state unit president of the Loktantrik Congress, accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of “gross neglect” of its allies in seat adjustment. Singh charged the BJP with betraying his party by not fulfilling its commitment of giving the ticket to all its 15 ministers. He said his party would field candidates for 30 seats. There are over a dozen ministers belonging to the BJP’s coalition partners besides three of its own who have been denied party ticket.

The discontent in the BJP over the nominees came into the open with protests and demonstrations, albeit by small groups, in and around the state unit headquarters in Lucknow following the declaration of the list of candidates. The denial of the ticket to 38 sitting legislators and three ministers has created much resentment in the BJP circles. Anger was visible also among the BJP allies which have been denied several important Assembly seats.

The Loktantrik Congress pointed out that the understanding with the BJP when they joined hands five years ago was that they would contest the next Assembly elections under a common banner. But now the ticket has been denied to many of the party MLAs. Supporters of another sitting MLA from Sisamau in Kanpur, accused the party leadership of giving away the ticket to “criminals.” While raising slogans inside the BJP headquarter premises, they threw d stones at the office building and damaged a car parked inside. Anger was also directed against State BJP chief Kalraj Mishra for ignoring the genuine claims of contenders and preferring close relatives and ignoring merit. Obviously, to avoid anticipated protests, both Rajnath Singh and Mishra camped in Delhi to finalise the list in consultation with senior BJP leaders.

There were mixed signals on whether the BJP would take up the Ram temple issue but hinted that the Ayodhya issue might figure in its manifesto for UP. Till now, the senior leaders of the party had ruled out the temple being part of its poll plank. According to Kalraj Mishra, though the Ayodhya temple was not a political issue, it was a “national issue” and that it might figure as a cultural issue in the manifesto being drafted. But party General Secretary Sunil Shastri hastened to clarify that the temple was not a political issue. The temple “will not be our poll plank,” he said.

The BJP’s central leadership has of late tried to play down the Ayodhya issue much to the distress of hardliners in the party and fellow Sangh outfits like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).

Among those granted the ticket are 10 ministers from allied parties who will be contesting on the BJP symbol this time. And of 152 sitting MLAs, the party has dropped 41 in its bid to refurbish its image in the state. Three ministers - Arvind Jain, Sri Ram Sonkar and Hari Narayan - also find themselves left out in the cold.

The BJP, trying to battle an anti-incumbency factor, and in pursuance of a determined effort by Singh to break through the backwards vote-bank, sought to stress that 125 of the 309 candidates announced belonged to backward or most backward classes. Rajnath Singh will contest from Haidergarh. Singh has, in his stint as Chief Minister, managed to stem to some extent the decline of the BJP in the State.

The BJP list of candidates for the hill state of Uttaranchal, shows that Bhagat Singh Koshiyari will contest from Kapkot as the chief ministerial candidate. Koshiyari’s predecessor, Nityanand Swamy, who saw an unceremonious exit late last year, did not find mention in the list of 64 candidates released. Shastri said Swamy had declined to contest. However, Swamy was later allowed to contest the election. Of the 23 original sitting MLAs in the new State, 18 were dropped.



Resignations galore

The ruling coalition in Uttar Pradesh seems to be collapsing, now that the five-year-long cosy relationship among the partners is over. Resignations by ministers may soon become order of the day, as nominations for the forthcoming assembly elections have begun. Vansh Narain Patel of the Kisan Mazdoor Bahujan Samaj Party (KMBP) was the fifth and the latest minister to go. Many others are likely to follow suit. Of the 45-odd ministers belonging to the BJP’s coalition partners, not even 50 per cent got the ticket. In fact, they are in a pitiable situation, as doors of other parties too stand closed for them.

The BJP has now taken a decision to extend support to those who have the ability to win and not the image of the candidates. The BJP leadership is determined to shed some of its baggage, notwithstanding the damage that it may cause to the party. Instead, some senior BJP leaders are strongly of the view that the denial of the ticket to ministers would help neutralise the anti-incumbency factor. Angry partners differ.They ask : “What about the BJP ministers? Moreover, each of our ministers has a potential to win five to ten thousand votes and this figure is quite crucial in an assembly election.”

Nonetheless, the coalition partners, who once dictated terms for providing their crutches to the BJP, are now left in the lurch. For instance, one of the LCP ministers, Vivek Singh, is apparently a victim of growing tussle between Rajnath Singh and Kalraj Mishra over ticket distribution. Vivek was an open critic of Mishra from the days the latter was a PWD minister. But his problems began when Mishra was appointed the BJP unit chief.



SP, Left ties strained

The Samajwadi Party (SP) is playing the “Big Brother” role and dictating terms to its allies in UP. On the eve of the assembly elections in West Bengal, the CPI-M did not spare even a single seat for the SP, despite the latter being the founder member of the newly launched People’s Front. Now the SP is all set to take the revenge for the humiliation it had suffered at the hands of the Marxists. Out of the Left’s demand for 40 to 45 seats, the SP has decided to allot 10 to 15 seats. The 10-15 seats will be equal to the 10 seats being allotted to the nominees of former Prime Minister V.P. Singh, who will be contesting on the SP symbol. The Left parties-CPI-M and the CPI-have to remain satisfied with whatever is given by Mulayam Singh Yadav as together they had only six MLAs in the earlier House.

Mulayam has been unsparing in his attack on the BJP’s communal agenda. In fact, he has cited the Pakistan President Musharraf’s crackdown on fundamentalist groups in his country to suggest that similar steps should be taken against Hindu outfits like VHP, Bajrang Dal and the RSS. Yadav has charged the Sangh Parivar (outfits that believe in the domination of the Hindu majority) with fomenting hatred against Muslims and sought a ban on the fundamentalist groups. He also called for action against educational institutions run by the RSS similar to the crackdown on madrassas in Pakistan which were engaged in poisoning the young mind against other communities.

Meanwhile, the Congress is busy attacking the other parties. In order of targets, the BJP is followed .by the Bahujan Samaj Party. The attack on the SP is muted, though it has been criticized for its casteist policy. As the BSP could in the final analysis tilt the power equations, the Congress has gone to the extent of dubbing it a BJP “agent.”

The BSP, however, is going about its campaign systematically. Mayawati is confident of her Dalit constituency and is wooing the community. Though the BSP is contesting from more constituencies than it can bank upon, its main aim is to act as a “spoiler” and split the votes. This strategy may actually result in either the SP votes or the anti- BJP votes splitting. By its presence in most of the 403 seats, the BSP will ensure that the margins of victory are thin and at times could even be of advantage to the BSP. The backward votes that all the parties are coveting, could be split among the SP, BJP and the BSP. Same too is the case with minority votes. The BSP too has put up many Muslim candidates to disprove the claim of Mulayam Singh Yadav that he is the sole champion of the minority rights.and their aspirations.

The lists of candidates released by the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, reveal that they are out to cut into each other’s vote bank and the ultimate gainer could be the BJP. Decrying the demand of the SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav that curbs be placed on Bal Shishu Mandirs and the other frontal organizations of the Sangh Parivar, the BJP has countered that if such parties have the guts they should place such a demand in their party manifesto. These statements were issued only to appease certain sections of society and because their popularity had taken a nosedive among the minorities. In a dig at the SP which had drafted film star Amitabh Bachchan to further its poll prospects, the BJP has pointed out that the turnout at such rallies was no indicator of the popularity of the party as the people turn up only to see film stars. But the BJP has welcomed the demand of the Congress and the SP that those with criminal background should not be given the ticket and the electorate should ensure that criminal elements are kept out of the political arena.



Punjab : Keen contests likely

The two key players in the Punjab Assembly elections have announced their list of candidates. While the ruling Akalis have announced the names of 92 candidates, its partner is yet to decide on the candidates for 23 seats. The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has also given two seats to the Bahujan Samaj Morcha. The Congress has selected 106 candidates, conceding 11 seats to the CPI with whom it has a poll alliance. The Panthic Morcha, having failed to rope in the BSP, released a list of 55 candidates. The line-up indicates that both the ruling SAD as well as the Congress have preferred to bet on old hands. There are just a few new faces and women candidates. There is more discontent in the Congress than in the SAD. But both parties have shown a definite tilt towards their relatives and aides who matter. Many of the contestants are those who had also fought the 1997 assembly elections. The Congress gave the ticket to 11 women while the Akalis have named only four women. Besides the present Chief Minister P.S. Badal, two former Chief Ministers Harcharan Singh Brar and Ms Rajinder Kaur Bhattal are also in the field. The stakes are high for the ruling Akalis as well as the Congress.

The Akalis came up with a dismal performance in the last Lok Sabha poll when they were stunned by the Congress. The SAD is mainly depending on the strategy and the charisma of Chief Minister Badal who has plunged into the campaign after spending a few weeks in hospital following a fracture. There is no second rung of leaders in the Akali Dal which makes Badal’s task even tougher and crucial.

The latest Supreme Court judgment asking Punjab to complete the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal to give effect to the Eradi Commission Award on the sharing of river waters between the states has come as a poll plank to the ruling Akalis . The sharing of waters with Haryana is a sore point with Punjab and the court has asked the Centre to expedite the project if Punjab defaulted on the issue. Under the award announced in 1987, Haryana has claimed that it was being deprived of its share of Ravi-Beas waters due to the non-completion of the SYL project by Punjab. Badal has already raised a war cry on the issue and stated in his rallies that not a drop of water will be given to any one and the court order will not be implemented even if it meant going to jail on the issue. Claiming that water was a natural resource of Punjab, Badal firmly ruled out the completion of the SYL project to share the waters

The BJP has decided to retain most of its sitting MLAs in Punjab and Manipur for next month’s Assembly polls. Shunned by its former ally Samata Party, the BJP is going it alone in Manipur and will contest 48 of the 60 Assembly seats while in Punjab, where it is a partner of the ruling Akali Dal (Badal), the party will put up 23 candidates retaining 15 of the 18 sitting MLAs. Releasing the list for the two states, a party spokesperson said in Manipur only four of the 26 sitting MLAs had been dropped from the list. In Manipur, the party is likely to enter into alliance with smaller groups for 12 seats. Among the prominent BJP leaders being fielded in Punjab are ministers Balramji Das Tandon and Lakshmikanta Chawla, and state leader Madan Mohan Mittal.



Congress promises free power

Despite former Union Finance Minister Manmohan Singh’s veto, the Congress election manifesto for Punjab has gone ahead and promised free power and water to farmers. The manifesto has included this offer as part of the party’s poll promises on the insistence of Punjab leaders. Manmohan Singh, who heads a five-member special committee on Punjab, was consulted on the economic issues to be included in the manifesto. Singh told the manifesto committee and State leaders that as an economist, he could not agree to such promises, especially when the State is in such a financial mess. Singh is reported to have made it clear that he did not subscribe to such promises, but if political exigencies required it, the manifesto committee could decide on it. Singh wanted to know how would the State government raise the resources to meet such demands.

Punjab leaders explained that since the Akali Dal Government already provided free power to farmers and has promised to continue this, the Congress would find it difficult to withdraw this facility. Politically, they felt, the Congress has little choice in this. They, however, agreed that given Punjab’s financial state, fulfilling this promise could prove an uphill task. As it is, the Congress in its “chargesheet” has castigated the Punjab ministry for creating an unprecedented economic crisis and bringing the State to the verge of bankruptcy. It has accused the Akali-BJP ministry of failing to keep its promise of free power. For, the supply is so erratic that farmers are willing to pay if power supply is assured.

Meanwhile, for Congressmen in Punjab, the fight has already begun - but among themselves. Though dissidence and infighting is nothing new in a political party like the Congress, the announcement of the party ticket has brought the bickering to the streets. While several aspirants have threatened to contest as rebels, some even said they would contest on the symbol of Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Reports of disgruntlement have been pouring in from across the three regions of Punjab - Majha, Doaba and Malwa - and acting as a dampener to the party’s otherwise upbeat mood.

Trouble started brewing in the State unit with the denial of the party ticket to relatives and loyalists of certain leaders. Though the party had so far stuck to its policy of not allowing outsiders from a constituency to contest the polls, allotment of the ticket to a few leaders against this norm has been the other major cause of resentment.

For instance the Congress candidate from Barnala, Surinder Pal Singh Sibia, is upset with the leadership since he was aspiring for the Sangrur seat. An aspirant for the Nabha seat, Ramesh Singla, had on Tuesday released a list of 26 party leaders, who he claimed were joining the Pawar Congress along with him. Though this move has been denied by some of the leaders who were named by him, a threat of a split in the party does exist.

However, PCC chief Amarinder Singh does not seem to be worried about it. He termed this disgruntlement a “genuine anger” of the people who had been denied the ticket. These people had been working hard for years and their anger on not getting the ticket was only natural, he argued while hoping that this would not last for long. He felt the Congress’ bright chances of returning to power this time would deter these leaders from taking any rash step. As they have been with the Congress for years, they cannot sever their strong bonds with the party just because they have been denied the ticket, he said. Maintaining that it was not possible to satisfy all aspirants, Amarinder Singh said there would be no review of the announced list. Since the people wanted a change in the Government, rebels, if any in the fray, would not affect the Congress’s prospects.

The State Congress chief also took up the SYL issue, describing it as a “complete sell-out”, accusing Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal of bartering away the State’s interests by not assiduously presenting its case on the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal before the Supreme Court. He said the Congress would file a review petition before the full bench of the SC if voted to power in next month’s elections. He accused Badal of “helping out” his friend O.P. Chautala of Haryana and selling away Punjab’s interests for personal favours. Amarinder Singh made it clear that the SYL issue would be the main electoral plank of the party which would “expose” the ruling Akali Dal.

The total water requirement of Punjab was in the vicinity of 52 million acre feet (MAF) while only 12 MAF was allocated to it. Yet, there was a proposal to dole out a part of it to Haryana. He said that Haryana had got more waters out of state’s rivers, following the re-organisation of the State, though Haryana had less agricultural land than Punjab. He also felt that the SYL verdict would compound the problems of the Punjab farmers leading to more suicides and allied problems.



Two by-elections in Tamil Nadu cancelled

On confirming large-scale rigging of the list of voters, the Election Commission of India has cancelled two of the scheduled three by-elections to Tamil Nadu’s legislative Assembly, Saidapet and Vaniyambadi. However, it has cleared the third by-poll, in Andipatti, where AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa is contesting, to take place as planned on February 21. After her recent acquittal in corruption cases, Jayalalithaa who had earlier stepped down as Chief Minister, is making a bid to enter the assembly to validate her return to power. The list of officials to be removed on the ECI’s order, for conniving at the rigging, is headed by the Municipal Commissioner of Chennai, S. Sampath. He was overall coordinator for the updating of the rolls in Saidapet, which is in South Chennai. The ECI has told the state government to remove Sampath and then take “stern action”against him, for violation of both, the ECI rules and also the poll statute itself. Then, the election registration officers of Saidapet and Vaniyambadi (each of SDM rank) are to be removed.