Punjab urban voters shun Akali-BJP front

The BJP, which had won an unprecedented 19 assembly seats in the 2007 assembly polls in alliance with the Akali Dal, lost 17 assembly segments, reflecting a clear discontent among the urban voters against the ruling Akali-Bharatiya Janata Party combine.

Disconcerting factor

Another disconcerting factor for the ruling alliance was the fact that while the Akali Dal’s rural vote share went to the Bharatiya Janata Party candidates, the reverse did not happen for the Akali candidates in the urban assembly segments.

The case in point is the Amritsar constituency where BJP candidate Navjot Sidhu trailed by a margin of 5,106 and 10,064 votes from two urban assembly segments represented by BJP candidates. Sidhu had to bank on the Akali’s rural vote bank in the Majitha constituency from where he secured a lead of over 20,000 votes which finally led him to secure a narrow victory against his Congress rival, O P Soni, by a margin of 6,858 votes.

From Gurdaspur, the BJP’s Vinod Khanna conceded a lead of 17,512 votes from the urban assembly segment of Batala while he got a lead of over 10,000 from the Fatehgarh churian assembly segment, a rural constituency represented by an Akali MLA. Khanna lost to the Congress candidate.

Wafer thin margin

Bharatiya Janata Party’s Som Parkash lost from the Hoshiarpur seat by a wafer thin margin of 366 votes. Here, too, the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate was handicapped by his party’s poor show in the urban centres.

Overall, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s vote share reflected a marginal fall from 10.48 per cent in 2004 to 10.06 per cent this time. Similarly, its senior ally, the Akali Dal reflected a slide in its vote share from 34.25 per cent in 2004 to 33.85 per cent this time. The Akali-BJP alliance candidates had won 11 of the 13 parliamentary seats in the state in 2004.

Real victor

The real victor this time was the Congress whose vote share jumped from 34.17 per cent in 2004 to 45.23 per cent this time.

Overall, the Congress managed to win from 67 of the 117 assembly segments in the state. In the 2007 assembly elections, the party had managed to win only 44 seats while conceding the power to the Akali-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance.

The urban voters which had deserted the Congress during the assembly polls came back to vote for the party candidates thanks mainly to the projection of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the party mascot in Punjab.

Vote bank

On the other hand, the Bharatiya Janata Partywhich is normally expected to eat into the Congress vote bank, performed poorly this time with only 5.75 per cent vote share against its 2004 vote share of 7.67 per cent.

All the BSP candidates in 13 parliamentary constituencies lost their security deposit. The Left parties also fared poorly as its three candidates polled only 56,526 votes and lost their deposit.
DH News Service