53 seats landed in Cong kitty,without much of a fight

State Congress president Captain Amarinder Singh curtailed his 10-day campaign to four days in the week of the polls and barring Union Minister Preneet Kaur,who confined herself to Patiala and Congress Legislative Party Leader Sunil Jakahr,almost all other senior leaders were missing from action. That it was not able to put up a credible agenda of local issues did not help matters either.

Fighting the might of the ruling alliance and history — it is the incumbent government that wins the civic polls in Punjab – the party’s performance is not dismal despite its tally in the four corporations of Ludhiana,Jalandhar,Patiala and Amritsar coming down from 67 seats in 2007 to 53,a fall of 14 seats (13,if one undeclared seat of Amritsar goes in its favour).

The fall can solely be attributed to poor show in Amritsar where the party had won 24 seats in 2007 and is now down to four. The credit for the results also goes to “poll management” skills of firebrand Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal’s brother-in-law Bikram Singh Majithia. The Congress had alleged 40,000 voters in the supplementary list,a charge that was not entertained by the State Election Commissioner S S Brar. Congress also suffered owing to infighting.

On the very onset,some local leaders raised a banner of revolt against Darbari Lal and Jugal Kishore Sharma on their appointment in the candidate screening committee for Amritsar. Later,MLA O P Soni,who was part of the state election committee,played a major role in candidate selection. But the two groups are learnt to have worked against each other leading to the party’s most dismal seat count in the city among the four that went to polls.

Though Amritsar poll in-charge Rana Kaypee agreed to the infighting being one of the reasons,he said it was a problem not just confined to Congress alone. “Nearly 40,000 voters were brought into the city from villages. In Amritsar south alone,10,000 such votes were added. Some houses had more than 200 votes. There was total lawlessness. On one seat,repoll was ordered after we won it,” he said.

In Jalandhar,the party had more hits than misses. It bagged 22 seats this time against the 19 last time. The verdict signals the recovery of Congress vote share in heart of Doaba belt,where the party had suffered a major setback in the Assembly polls,losing all the four seats in the city.

Amarinder Singh attributed the better show in Jalandhar to Dera Sachkhand Ballan supporting the party. “We lost in Doaba in the state polls mainly owing to Dera Ballan not voting for us. We hope to get their support in the parliamentary polls as well,” he said.

In Ludhiana,the party’s performance has almost been at par with last time. Against 20 in 2007,the tally this time stands at 19,a loss of one seat. But Ludhiana in-charge and senior vice-president of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee,Laal Singh,claimed the tally would have been 40 had the polls been free and fair. “The police were forcing our people out of the booths. They broke EVM machines and arrested our candidates for it. Why the farce of elections? Like the chairmen of market committees and improvement trusts,they should also nominate councillors. I will ask my party to boycott block and panchayat polls,instead of getting its workers beaten up and women humiliated,” he added. Among factors that affected the party’s tally was the high number of rebels in fray (19) and its inability to win them over.

In Patiala,it was poor strategy all the way — right from appointment of Chaudhary Jagjit Singh as the organisational committee in-charge to Amarinder appearing to campaign on his home turf just two days ahead of the polls.