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BJP and allies oust Congress from power in Punjab, Uttarakhand;

	March 05, 2007

Manipur the only saving grace



In the first lot of Assembly elections taking place this year, 2007, the Congress, heading the ruling coalition at the Centre, has started on a losing note, conceding victory to the BJP and allies in both Punjab and Uttarakhand, in northern India. The only saving grace for the party was Manipur where it ended up just short of a clear majority.



The Punjab and Uttarakhand election verdicts have come as a shot in the arm for the BJP and the National Democratic Alliance it is leading. In Punjab, the BJP came up with its largest ever tally, securing 19 seats in the 117-member State Assembly. With the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) securing 48 seats of the total 116 for which polling had taken place, the party has been able to effectively turn the tables on the Congress which ended up with 44 seats. Smaller parties and Independents won 5 seats.



In Uttarakhand also, the Congress had to bite the dust, securing just 21 seats against 34 secured by the BJP out of the total 69 seats for which polling took place. In one more constituency, polling is to take place later.



A significant feature of the election outcome in Uttarakhand was the credible show put up by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) which got eight seats while six seats went to other small parties and Independents.



The only consolation for the Congress came in Manipur where it secured 29 of the total 60 seats of the State Assembly. The Manipur People’s Party (MPP) got five seats while the remaining went to Independents and sympathisers of the Nagas demand for unification of Naga dominated areas in the north-east.





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Latest Party Position



PUNJAB



Total seats : 117



Election held : 116



SAD-BJP alliance



SAD 48

BJP 19



Congress 44

Others 5



Election for one seat countermanded







UTTRAKHAND



Total seats 70



Election held 69



BJP 34

Congress 21

BSP 8

UKD 3

Others 3



Election for one seat countermanded







MANIPUR



Total seats 60



Congress 29

NCP 6

MPP 5

CPI 4

NPP 3

RJD 3

Others 10





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New Governments take over in Punjab, Manipur



Veteran Akali Dal leader Parkash Singh Badal took over as Chief Minister of Punjab for the fourth time on March 2 at the swearing in ceremony held at a cricket stadium in Mohali, near Chandigarh. Seventeen other Ministers were sworn in with him, 12 belonging to the Akali Dal and five to the BJP. All are Ministers of Cabinet rank. They were administered the oath of office and secrecy by Punjab Governor, Gen. S.F. Rodrigues.



Reflecting the clear hold of Parkash Singh Badal over the Shiromani Akali Dal, the Ministry has four members of the Badal family. The others, apart from the Chief Minister are his son-in-law, Adesh Pratap Singh Kairon, nephew Manpreet Singh Badal, son Sukhbir Badal’s brother-in-law Bikram Singh Majithia and distant relative, Janmeja Singh Sekhon.



In Manipur, Okram Ibobi Singh of the Congress was sworn in as Chief Minister for a second term by Governor S.S. Siddhu. Earlier, he staked claim to form the Government with the support of the CPI which has four seats and the RJD which has three seats in the State Assembly.





Tussle for Chief Minister’s job in Uttarakhand



In Uttarakhand, Maj. General B.C. Khanduri, is set to take over as Chief Minister of a BJP-led government anytime this week. State Governor Sudarshan Kumar Aggarwal has invited Khanduri to form the new Government in the hill state and prove his majority on the floor of the House by March 20. According to reports, the BJP is trying to woo the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (UKD) which has three MLAs in the House as well as Independents so that his Government has majority support in the Assembly. Khanduri, it appears, is not very keen on depending solely on the UKD as an ally because of the regional party’s inflexible stand on the question of building a new capital at Gairsain in Chamoli district in place of the present interim capital, Dehradun. The UKD has assured support to the BJP in principle and ruled out any attempt to form an alliance with the Congress. The central leadership of the Congress has been saying that the party has no intention of trying to cobble together an alliance, but local leaders of the party are reported to be in no mood to give up. At the least, they could create hurdles in the formation of a BJP government. As the BJP, with the support of Independents, will have a razor-thin majority, there will be a question mark on the stability of the Government.



The tussle for chief-minister-ship in Uttarakhand was so close that the BJP legislature party meeting for electing its leader continued for nearly six hours on Thursday, March 1, as former Chief Minister and State party president, Bhagat Singh Koshiyari was in no mood to withdraw his claim even after the party high command’s signal that it was in favour of Khanduri. Reports say that Koshiyari is still peeved at his claim for chief-ministership being ignored despite his having the support of a sizeable section of party MLAs who find Khanduri, a Member of the Lok Sabha at present, distant and inaccessible. Koshiyari is reported to have refused the post of Speaker offered to him as compensation for stepping aside for Khanduri. Khanduri is also reported to be trying to include Koshiyari in his cabinet, but it is not certain if Koshiyari would agree to serve under him.



The venue of the legislature party’s marathon meeting witnessed loud slogan-shouting by supporters of both Khanduri and Koshiyari for one and a half hours, as the cadres who expected a short meeting to decide the issue grew impatient.



Widely described as an RSS man, Koshiyari is reported to have stuck to his claim at the meeting for the Chief Minister’s job saying that he had worked for the party for five long years and enjoyed the support of 20 MLAs. This indicates that Gen. Khanduri will have to do some tightrope walking to keep his flock happy.





Why Congress lost ?



Rising prices of essential commodities are widely seen as one of the main reasons for the Congress defeat in Punjab and Uttarakhand. The Congress and its allies, including the Left, as well as the BJP, agree that inflation was one of the key reasons for the electoral reverses suffered by the party. Anti-incumbency also appears to have played a major role in the party’s defeat, especially as most of the sitting MLAs were re-nominated for the polls. Despite knowing that anti-incumbency will be a major factor, the party could not get the courage to drop those of the sitting MLAs who had not shown promise in the last five years. It is significant that in Punjab, most sitting MLAs of both the Congress and the Akali Dal failed to get re-elected. As former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh noted after the election results were out, anti-incumbency was noticeable at the constituency level.



Significantly, the urban voters rejected the Congress in Punjab while the Akali Dal lost some of its rural base, especially in the Malwa area where the Congress was able to make inroads into the Akali Dal strongholds. On the other hand, the Akali Dal virtually wiped out the Congress in the Majha and Doaba areas of Punjab which used to be Congress bastions.





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Congress vote-share more than Akali Dal’s



The Congress lost the Punjab election, but its vote share of 40.90 per cent was more than that of the Shiromani Akali Dal which secured 37.09 per cent of the total votes polled. Only when the Akali Dal vote share is combined with that of the BJP, it comes upto a winning 45.37 per cent.



The elections, which proved to be the Waterloo of many a political heavyweight of Punjab, also saw almost complete decimation of the Left, BSP and the Panthic fronts, parties that carried a lot of weight until not too long back. According to analyst J.S. Sekhon, “Punjab is seeing a clear shift towards a two-party system. Gone are the days of splinter parties. These elections have shown that the electorate has matured and does not put its weight behind a party that it feels has no stake in state-level politics.”



The Malwa voters, who often used to cast their lot with the fringe parties, this time decided to make a choice between either the Akalis or the Congress.



The BSP which contested all the 116 seats, barely managed to cling to its national party status with a vote share of 4.13 per cent - four per cent is mandatory to be recognised as a national outfit.



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Lok Sabha byelections



Of the two Lok Sabha byelections held with the Assembly polls, the BJP retained one while the Congress wrested one seat from the BJP. Navjot Singh Sidhu of the BJP who had quit the Lok Sabha after his conviction in a man-slaughter case, was able to retain the Amritsar seat by a margin of over 70,000 votes. But the BJP suffered a setback in Uttarakhand when the Congress won the Tehri Lok Sabha seat by a margin of over 20,000 votes. Congress nominee Vijay Bahuguna defeated his BJP rival Manujendra Shah. The byelection was caused by the death of sitting BJP MP Manvendra Shah, father of Manujendra Shah.





Impact at the national level



The reverses suffered by the Congress in the Assembly elections are not expected to have any immediate impact on the stability of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre. But analysts say that a weakened Congress will be rendered more vulnerable to the demands of its allies, who are already becoming increasingly aggressive. The party will face greater difficulties in implementing its economic agenda of reforms in the face of opposition from the Left parties which are providing crucial outside support to the Manmohan Singh Government.



Observers also see the Assembly election results impacting the coming Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. BJP’s resurgence could lead to a Muslim consolidation behind the Samajwadi Party, which will dent the Congress plan to regain its lost votebank of minorities and dalits.



The Assembly election outcome has also reduced the scope for the Congress having its way in the Presidential election to be held in July this year. If the UP elections to be held by May this year confirm the Punjab and Uttarakhand trend, the Congress will be further off from having the requisite numbers in the electoral college to install its own candidate in Rashtrapati Bhavan. The role of the Left parties and the Samajwadi Party in the Presidential election will become more crucial.



The BJP is already looking at the Punjab and Uttarakhand elections as a trend-setter for the looming electoral battle in Uttar Pradesh. The BJP leadership believes that the NDA is on the comeback trail and the issues of price rise, terrorism and minorityism can be used to further strengthen its traditional votebank.



The victories in Punjab and Uttarakhand have already resulted in the BJP’s allies in the NDA drawing closer to the party. One sign of this was Bihar Chief Minister and senior Janata Dal United leader Nitish Kumar singling out BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley for handsome compliments. The JD(U) has also decided to explore the possibility of an alliancae with the BJP in Uttar Pradesh.



BJP leaders feel that the party can replicate the Congress formula to win the 2009 Lok Sabha elections - sit tight, go for strategic partnerships and hope the incumbency factor works in its favour.



Seen from another perspective, the victories could encourage those who increasingly talk of the emergence of a right-wing constituency sensitive to the Hindutva message (the campaign in Uttarakhand had a saffron hue).



While this lot is not large enough to propel the saffronites to power on their own, they can gather critical mass when there is fusion of Hindutva issues - appeasement, minorityism, softness-on-terror etc - with grievances like non-governance, inflation and so on.



It can breathe fresh air into the party’s campaign for UP, and spark a flurry of fresh attempts to mend fences with allies whom it discarded to rope in new ones.





Alarm bells in the Left



The Left parties say that the UPA Government should change the direction of its economic policies in the light of the Assembly election results. The CPI(M) in a statement in New Delhi said the policies pursued in Punjab and Uttarakhand have not benefited the rural poor and the common people. The party politburo said the UPA Government and the Congress leadership should draw proper lessons from the defeat and change the direction of their policies.



The CPI on a slightly different note said that the Left parties should probe why they have done so badly in the Assembly elections. CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta said in New Delhi on March 1, the Left needs to introspect. He said UP should not go the Punjab way and the CPI would join the Jan Morcha of V.P. Singh and Raj Babbar against the Samajwadi Party and the BJP in the state. The CPI leader said Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav was helping only the rich.