CHANDIGARH: The ruling Congress (I) suffered defeats in this week’s municipal elections. Its candidates could win only 424 of the 1302 wards (33%) to which the poll was held. The party had put up its candidates in 1083 wards. In other words, the party was rejected in as many as 61% of the wards,
The urban electorate in Punjab is mostly Hindus. However, Congress (I)’s loss has not turned out to be the Hindu fundamentalist B.J.P’s gain. The BJ.P’s candidates won in just 68 yards out of 600 wards in which the party set up its official candidates, The Bahujan Samaj Party, representing Dalits also had a poor showing. Its candidates could win only three wards. Independent candidates won in as many as 807 wards (62% of the total).
The election results were being viewed with interest as the municipal committees went to the poll in the wake of the stepped up repression by the Indian security forces on the pro-Khalistan activists. A vast majority of the 95 committees to which the elections were conducted had an overwhelming Hindu population. The Sikhs in the urban areas are in a minority, Besides, the Punjab government authorities headed by chief minister Beant Singh had invested the election campaign with a lot of anti-militant politics. For the first time the ruling party as well other pro-India groups set up their official candidates. The chief minister himself had pinned high hopes when he remarked “The civic elections will mirror how the people perceive our actions.” ‘The results showed that the voters’ turn out was as heavy as 70% as compared to 21% during the February 1992 poll to the Punjab Assembly. Obviously this time also the Hindus voted with a vengeance to nullify the militant call for boycotting the election. However, it is true that quite a large percentage of Sikhs voted in the civic poll as militant pressure in favor of boycott lessened.
It happens that while the urban voters by and large ignored the boycott line, they also rejected traditional pro-India political parties including the Congress(I) and the B.J.P. The election of a majority of independent candidates shows that the urban people want proper attention to be paid to their civic requirements through influential local, unattached people.
Since the ruling party has emerged as the largest single block among those elected and with the government in the hands of the Congress (I) it is fairly certain that the party will manage to control through political manipulation a vast majority of the 95 municipal committees. But despite this the chief minister ought to be a worried man. If his party failed to win a respectable number of wards in the Hindu dominated urban areas, how can the party perform better in the Sikh-majority panchayat elections to be held later this year? All said and done, the chief minister does not seem to be in a hurry to arrange an early election to the panchayats in any case.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 18, 1992
