NEW DELHI: India’s chief election commissioner on Wednesday said election to the 117member Punjab Assembly as well as 13 members of Lok Sabha from the state would be conducted on February 19.
A formal notification T.N Seshan said here would be issued on January 20. January 27 has been fixed a8 the last date to file nominations which will be scrutinized the next day. The candidates will be free to withdraw from context on January 30.
India is conducting election in Punjab after it had dismissed the state Assembly in May 1987 alleging failure of the state government to maintain law and order. In the intervening period Delhi’s security forces killed more than 5000 Sikh activists struggling for an independent country to be named Khalistan and arrested more than 20,000 others.
The election is being organized not with standing further deterioration in the law and order situation reportedly on the advice of certain western countries. However Sikhs principal political groups the pro Khalistan militants as well as new and traditional Akalis have announced they will not participate in the poll process “under the present Indian Constriction” and until the United Nations supervises such election.
How far will the main militant and nonmilitant Sikh groups succeed in effectively enforcing the proposed boycott is a million dollar question. While militant groups appear hopeful of making the boycott a success unlike in 1985 India has inducted about half a million of its armed forces to ensure that the militants program is frustrated and a large number of voters turn up to exercise their political rights under the resent constitutional arrangement. Most political observers are keeping their fingers crossed India’s original schedule was to complete the election by mid-February but it was delayed presumably to persuade a few Sikh groups to join the process. So much so that Jiwan Singh Umranangal protégé of the union home ministry announced formation of a new panty which he named as Shiromani Jagat Akali Dal. This token formation is evidently aimed at putting pressure on another Akali Dal headed by Kabul Singh and known as Akali Dal (Longowal) to fall in line and agree to share power with Congress(I) in the state as it did in 1985-87 on the basis of the Rajiv Longowal accord.
The Longowal faction formed a seven member committee to decide on whether to participate in or boycott the election The faction held a meeting of its leaders at Chandigarh on the eve of chief lection commissioners announcement. The faction spokesman Kanwaljit Singh said the final decision on the matter would be taken only after the notification had been issued by the Indian government. Evidently the group was still apprehensive about the poll.
On the eve of the starting of the election process Indian prime minister Narasimha Rao was under pressure to announce a few political steps to mollify Sikh public opinion C.P.(M) leader Harkishan Singh Subject projected this viewpoint and said that “otherwise it will be impossible to isolate militants from Akalis”
Rao held wide ranging consultations on the territorial and water disputes including with the former Indian Sikh ministers Swaran Singh and Gurdial Singh Dhillon. Both these former ministers according to a report made an interesting suggestion that Chandigarh should stay as union territory and both Punjab and Haryana should be compensated handsomely to build their own capital cities in the interior of the two states respectively. They thought Amritsar could serve as Punjab’s new capital. This way the two former ministers argued Sikhs could be mollified to some extend for the operation “blue star” of 1984.
But evidently the Indian government is still determined to impose the Rajiv Longowal accord on Punjab the essential feature of which is the transfer of water of Punjab Rivers to Haryana and continuance of the supply to Rajasthan. This water is worth more than a thousand times the cost of public buildings at Chandigarh according to experts The two issues have been linked up to favour Haryana and Rajasthan on the one hand and to give an impression of “victory” to Punjab through its traditional Akalis.
It is interesting to note that neither Badal nor Simarnjit Singh Mann has convincingly rejected the Rajiv Longowal accord on merits. While Badal keeps harping on “fair distribution of water” when the entire water belongs to Punjab Mann recently regretted that the Indian government did not implement even the Rajiv Longowal accord.
The main thrust of India’s election program in Punjab it appears is to enforce the essence of the Rajiv Longowal accord through some or the other Sikh group which despite the militant sponsored boycott emerges “victorious”. Politically the election will make it possible for the Rao government to accumulate more power in the Lok Sabha to dispense with dependence on BJP and other opposition parties. It will also be able to “convince” the western countries about the government’s commitment to democracy.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 24, 1992
