These questions assume importance in view of the optimistic predictions made by the three contenders of power about their 2012 Assembly prospects. An answer to these questions cannot be attempted without reviewing the outcome of the September 18 elections.

Although it is too early to indulge in crystal ball gazing as in the current fast changing world the intervening four months to the Assembly elections can upset all calculations, yet speculating about future electoral politics is a professional hazard journalists have to face.

As was predicted in this column a few weeks ago, the Akali Dal has regained its control over the apex Sikh religious body which with an annual Rs.600 crore budget represents a veritable powerhouse with enormous sway on the Sikh masses. What has surprised many watchers of the Punjab scene is the ruling party’s scoring a massive 157/170 seats win.

Some events make history. The latest SGPC polls were one of them. It was perhaps for the first time in the long history of the SGPC that its polls witnessed brazen violations of the Gurdwara Act, violence, bogus voting, intimidation of voters and booth capturing, particularly in the home district of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his estranged nephew Manpreet Singh Badal. Besides, the elections also exposed Akalis and SGPC leaders double-speak on the issue of Sehajdharis and ‘patit’ Sikhs voting rights. They had stoutly opposed giving them voting rights but did not raise even their little finger against their large scale participation in the polls.

What was worse was the inept handling of the polls and laughable reaction of the chief gurdwara commissioner Justice H.S. Brar (retd) who said he was unaware of any such incidents and violations having taken place.

On-the-spot reports by many visiting journalists spoke about these illegalities and Gurdwara Act violations with the government officials and the police standing as mute spectators. Almost all newspapers carried pictures of the ‘patit’ Sikhs and those with shorn hair participating in the polling.

The chief commissioner questioned the integrity of the media which had reported the incidents. Saying that the commission relied on its own election observers to report the incidents, he said: “The technology is well advanced these days. How do we know these pictures in the newspapers are real and not morphed?” Either Brar is unaware or just conveniently ignored the High Court’s numerous decisions taking suo motu notice of newspapers reports about violations of laws and converting the reports into Public Litigation cases.

Commenting on the chief commissioner’s role in his “RE-take” column, Ramesh Vinayak, the resident Editor of Chandigarh Hindustan Times enjoying unchallengeable credibility writes: “This was perhaps Brar’s way of returning the favour to the Badal Government for appointing his daughter as a top law officer in Punjab advocate general office”.

Forget Brar’s comments. This is what the Administration’s highest executive Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal told a journalist covering the polls in Badal and Gibberbaha (Manpreet’s constituency) when he was asked about the participation of ineligible voters in his own village: “Mainu Nahin Pata, no votan banan da, no votan paun da, ih administration point hai” (I don’t know neither about registering of votes nor about polling. It is an administration matter).

The Akali Dal’s victory in the SGPC has, no doubt, created a favourable political atmosphere for the party. But three factors can play the role of spoilsport for the Akalis optimistic hopes.

The most important is the anti-incumbency factor. Despite the doles the government had been and would also announce during the run-up to the elections –the latest being large scale promotion of lower-rank policemen and grant of sops to them- reports are daily appearing in the media about protests by different sections of the people pressing for their demands, mostly about unpaid salaries and for redressing other grievances. The cash-starved government finds it difficult to release funds. It has been surviving on loans which the Banks are now refusing to advance.

The other factor is that Sukhbir Singh and his musclemen will not be able to indulge in large-scale booth capturing which was first witnessed particularly in the Akali bastion of Malwa region which the party had lost to the Congress in 2007, during the last local bodies elections and was also repeated, though on a limited scale, in the SGPC elections. The vigilant Election Commission will deploy central forces at the election booths making booth capturing impossible.

However, the possibility of using the police and the civil agencies to intimidate the voters through police and government officials before they reach polling stations cannot be ruled out. Past experience tells that in desperation, the ruling leadership can go to any extent to win the elections.

The third and the most important factor that would go against the ruling alliance is the poor state of the BJP which had won 19 seats in 2007 enabling the minority Akali Dal to form the government. It was not without reason that Capt. Amarinder Singh recently declared that he had abandoned Panthic agenda which had almost wiped out the Congress in the urban areas in 2007 to the advantage of the BJP.

The Congress electoral prospects will largely be determined by whether it is able to pull the party out of the poor state it finds itself in today by taking corrective steps. If it fails to do so, it will boost the Akali Dal’s electoral prospects.

Even while making speculative predictions, one will have to keep one’s fingers crossed about the outcome of the 2012 Assembly elections. (IPA Service)