Bagha banks on PM for votes, Dhaliwal flaunts local connect

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Phagwara, October 15

Clad in a pink, khadi kurta pyjama with a lotus brooch tagged on it, BJP candidate Rajesh Bagha, 46, addressed a small gathering in a house at Rampur Khalian village in the Phagwara Assembly seat.

Surrounded by rural folk, he began his speech with “Sat Sri Akal”. He told them that the party chose him as it wanted to field a younger candidate this time. During his speech, he sought vote in the name of PM Narendra Modi and Union MoS Som Parkash, who has been accompanying him throughout the campaign.

In less than two minutes, he wound up with “Jai Bheem, Jai Bharat” slogan. Not mingling with villagers or stopping for chit-chat, he headed to the next village. This way, he intends to cover all 91 villages of his constituency in the remaining five days of campaign.

Like Bagha, Congress candidate Balwinder Singh Dhaliwal too is a fresher in politics. An ex-bureaucrat, he has retained his shirt-trouser attire. His meetings at Palahi and Wahid villages were held in an organised manner under tents. Rather than any salutation, he addressed the gathering, making sure that he read names of all prominent people participating in the rally. Though he too is somewhat stone-faced, his speeches are little longer wherein he calls himself a local and refers to the days when he served as an SDM in the town.

Attacking his BJP rival calling him an outsider from Jalandhar, he reminded everyone that his party still had 2.5-year term in the state and they should bank upon him for getting all pending works done.

While Bagha is banking upon Som Parkash, Dhaliwal is relying on Industries Minister Sunder Sham Arora for campaigning. Arora has been camping in Phagwara since the elections were announced.

The campaign is also being seen as a more of a contest between Som Parkash and Arora.

Caste equations

Of the five main candidates, those of the BJP, BSP, Aam Aadmi Party and Lok Insaaf Party are from the dominant Ravidassia community (38 pc) and hence the votes in this community are set to split. The Congress candidate is a Mazhbi Sikh and the community has just about 9,000 voters. The BSP’s repeated attempt to rake up the issue of demolition of Guru Ravidass Temple in Tughlaqabad too can hit the Congress.

The villages have a mixed Sikh and Dalit population while the city is largely dominated by the Hindus. The BJP believes that it has the support of Hindu voters and has been reminding them of the abrogation of Article 370 in J&K. The Congress too has specifically chosen minister Sunder Sham Arora to consolidate Hindu votebank in its favour. The defection of five MC councillors (who were ex-MoS Vijay Sampla’s loyalists) to the Congress too may give an additional edge to the party in urban areas.

Likewise, the BJP today attempted to keep its Purvanchali votebank of about 20,000 residents from Onkar Nagar intact by holding a performance of Bhojpuri singer Khushboo Tiwari. Som Parkash has support from this community as he got converted the slums into a developed colony.