Farmers Movement Archive

Rural Punjab key to SAD fortunes

CHANDIGARH: Out of power in Punjab for 5 years, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has its task cut out for the state Assembly elections scheduled to be held on February 14. While a multi-cornered contest is in the offing for the first time in the state, SAD's hopes are hinged on reviving its traditional support base in rural Punjab. The party had decided to snap its 24-year-old Nauh Maas Da Rishta (relationship between nail and flesh) with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on September 26, 2020 after facing farmers’ ire on the three contentious central farm laws. Thereafter, SAD - the oldest regional party in the country - on June 12, 2021 announced an alliance with the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), hoping to influence the scheduled caste voters, accounting for over 32% of Punjab’s total vote share. The two parties had earlier been in alliance 25 years ago, when they had contested the Lok Sabha elections together in 1996 and had won 11 out of total 13 Lok Sabha seats. The ruling Congress in the state gave SAD-BSP alliance a new challenge by picking up Charanjit Singh Channi as the first scheduled caste chief minister of the state on September 19, 2021. Similarly, the decision of some farm unions under the banner of Sanyukta Samaj Morcha, led-by Balbir Singh Rajewal, to contest Punjab polls is also likely to dent the rural Jat-Sikh vote bank of the SAD at a time when its old alliance partner BJP has already deprived the party of its urban and Hindu vote bank share. Panjab University political science professor Ashutosh Kumar says, “It's SAD’s game plan to get support of SC votes from the BSP. But it is not going to help much since the Congress has already appointed Channi as CM from the community.” SAD had got 34.73% vote share in the 2012 Assembly polls and it reduced to 32.2% in 2017 polls, whereas BSP had fetched 4.30% votes in the 2012 state elections and their vote share decreased to 1.5% in the 2017 polls. SAD was reduced to 15 seats in the 2017 state polls and its then alliance partner BJP could win just three seats. In its seat sharing formula, the SAD-BSP alliance has decided that out of the total 117 constituencies, SAD will be contesting on 97 seats and the BSP on the remaining 20. SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal, who is member of the Lok Sabha from Ferozepur, will be contesting from his traditional Assembly constituency of Jalalabad, whereas BSP's Punjab unit chief Jasvir Singh Garhi has decided to contest from Phagwara reserve seat.

The Times of India

2022-01-09