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News Analysis
Elections that satisfied major contestants
Prabhjot Singh
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 17
Elections to 13 Lok Sabha seats from Punjab were unique in more than one ways. They not only reiterated state’s affirmation in democratic values with a record turnover but also left the main contesting parties satisfied.

Both the ruling SAD-BJP alliance and Congress were content with the 5-8 verdict given by 1.18 crore voters (against 1.02 crore in 2004), of which 56.46 lakh were women. Keeping in tide with its young profile, the state’s electoral college decided to blend youth and experience in its team to Lok Sabha. It inducted seven new faces in its 13 with Ravneet Singh Bittu (33) and Sukhdev Singh Libra (76) as the baby and oldest member of the new team.

Six of new Punjab MPs are below the age of 50 and only five are 60 or above. The team has impressive academic credentials with a matriculate, six graduates, two lawyers, one post-graduate and a practicing doctor. The remaining two are senior secondary.

If one looks at the vote share, Congress has taken its share to 45.23 per cent, with 53.5 lakh of total voters on its side against 38.44 per cent it had in 1999 and 34.17 in 2004. Shiromani Akali Dal that had 28.59 per cent voters in 1999 and 34.28 in 2005 could get only 33.85 per cent this time. Its alliance partner, BJP had 9.16 per cent in 1999, 10.48 in 2004 and 10.06 this time, indicating that both alliance partners have failed to reach their last general election level.

One reason for substantial increase in Congress vote share could be its decision to contest all 13 seats on its own after 1996. Also significant was the swing of urban Sikh vote in favour of Congress as the Sikh Prime Minister factor visibly worked. Top Congress leadership, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi campaigned in eight of 13 parliamentary constituencies. Intriguingly, though Prime Minister swung the urban Sikh vote in his party’s favour but all the three constituencies he addressed election rallies, Congress candidates lost.

Though the SAD-BJP alliance depended heavily on Parkash Singh Badal for campaigning, it heaved a huge sigh of relief when the entire top leadership of the NDA came and attended a historic rally at Ludhiana. Only the alliance can analyse and tell how productive it remained for its candidates as it lost the Ludhiana seat by a huge margin. This time the Communists - CPI and CPM combined - were also in the fray on their own. While CPI got 0.33 per cent vote share, CPM got 0.14. Bahujan Samaj Party contested all 13 seats and got 5.75 per cent votes.

If Shiromani Akali Dal had the satisfaction of wresting back its share in the Malwa - Bathinda, Faridkot and Ferozepore - it also drew a blank in the Doaba. It, however, managed to keep its share intact in the Majha. Taran Tarn, now Khadur Sahib, has always remained an Akali seat. The only exception was 1991 when Akalis boycotted polls and Surinder Singh Kairon won from there on Congress ticket, defeating Harbhajan Singh Oshan of BSP.

Though Congress was expecting anything between nine and 11 seats, it suffered reverses in Ferozepore from where Jagmeet Brar’s third attempt to get into Lok Sabha (Ferozepore) was thwarted again, and Amritsar, where OP Soni lost narrowly to Navjot Sidhu.

Another heart-warming feature of the 2009 elections has been increased awareness and participation of women voters. In 23 of the 117 assembly segments, they outnumbered their male counterparts. Hoshiarpur topped the list with seven of nine segments having more women voters while both Jalandhar and Anandpur Sahib had five assembly segments each.

In Bholath, for example, there were 35,926 male voters and 41,264 female voters. In Urmar, the number of male and female voters was 46,583 and 51,146 - a big difference. This is in spite of the deplorable sex ratio that shows only 793 females for every thousand males.