Akali Dal creates history, retain power

The Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata party combine on Tuesday created history by retaining power in Punjab, while giving a humiliating defeat to the Congress.

The SAD-BJP combine also frustrated the attempts of People’s Party of Punjab (PPP) to add third dimension to the otherwise bipolar political discourse in Punjab.

State Congress President Capt. Amarinder Singh, who till Monday evening, had been holding consultations with his colleagues about the formation of the government, was in for a shock and conceded defeat while owning responsibility.

He also congratulated Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. It is for the first time since the re-organisation of Punjab in 1966 that a political party has come to power in the second successive term.

Not only that the Shiromani Akali Dal has also improved its position as compared to the 2007 election. The SAD-BJP combine has captured 68 seats with 46 in the Congress’s kitty. Of the three independents who have made it to the Assembly, two are SAD’s rebels.

Badal, while giving credit to the people for the unprecedented victory, also gave full marks to his deputy chief minister son Sukhbir Singh Badal who also heads the party.

Sukhbir has proved his organizational and managerial capacity in the third successive election. Badal has convened a meeting of the Akali Dal Legislature Party here on March 8 to go through the formality of electing a new leader. The party’s core committee would also meet the same evening.

Badal said the people had voted for the agenda of peace and amity represented by the Akali Dal-BJP alliance and development.

This is the first election in which the Akali Dal had entered the fray by shedding the Panthic agenda and as such, it was considered a litmus test personally for Sukhbir.

All the emotive issues like Operation Bluestar and November 1984 violence against the Sikhs were relegated to the background with thrust on the development issues. Sukhbir had taken a calculated risk by shunning the Panthic agenda. His experiment has set a new precedent.

The Congress, which had messed up the selection of candidates, had failed to put up a positive agenda and the campaign was mainly negative. This perhaps did not go down well with the people.

The party could not manage its rebels, the weakness which was exploited by Sukhbir. The Akali Dal--BJP combine had concentrated on positive issues. The BJP strategy of changing certain candidates also paid off as this strategy neutralized anti-incumbency against it.

 Of course, the party could manage to retain 12 seats against 19 out of 23 seats it had won last time. But even then, its performance is considered to be much above expectations.

This election has shattered yet another myth and this myth had revolved around the Sirsa based Dera Sacha Sauda. This Dera has considerable following in about 30 seats in Punjab, mainly in the Malwa area.

The Dera had come into confrontation with the Sikhs in 2008. Though the Dera had not announced open support to any candidate this time, it was given out that the Dera had put its weight behind the Congress.

 However, this is not reflected in the election results as the Akali Dal has improved a lot in its traditional stronghold of Malwa in which it had lost ground to the Congress in the 2007 election. Dera had openly supported the Congress in the 2002 Assembly elections.

While distancing from the Panthic Agenda, Sukhbir had made yet another experiment and this was at the level of social engineering. The Akali Dal had put up Hindu candidates from a number of seats which further gave out a positive signal. Most of the Hindu candidates put up by the SAD have won.

When Manpreet Singh Badal parted company with the first political family in Punjab, it was considered to be a big setback for Parkash Singh Badal who had groomed his nephew. Even in these elections, Parkash Singh Badal was opposed by his real brother Gurdas Singh Badal and cousin Mahesh Inder Singh Badal.

Badal senior virtually remained confined to his Lambi seat most of the time. At the state level, Manpreet had succeeded generating euphoria by trying to introduce his new style of politics and by going back to the legacy of martyrs like Shaheed Bhagat Singh. However, he failed in this final test, loosing himself from both the seats he contested from.