Chandigarh: Caste politics may take centre stage in most north Indian states, but in agrarian Punjab where Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes make up 55 per cent of state’s population, it doesn’t play any decisive role, say political experts. The reason? Neither section, whose concentration is highest in the Doaba region (the area between the Beas and the Satluj), have no loyalty to any particular political party.
Though Dalits, both among Sikhs and Hindus, are seen as the Congress’s traditional supporters, while the Akalis bank on the Jat Sikhs (comprising 25 per cent of the population), the present Congress ministry led by Captain Amarinder Singh is dominated by Jat Sikhs — eight cabinet ministers (including the CM) out of 18, against three Dalit ministers and none from Backward Classes.
For the Mayawati-led BSP, a victory in Punjab is still a distant dream, despite the state being the home turf of party founder Kanshi Ram and having a Dalit population of 31.9 per cent — the highest among Indian states.
In the 2017 assembly polls, the BSP’s performance was abysmal, which was not strange given its largely unimpressive showing in the LS poll in the previous two decades. Chandigarh-based Institute of Development and Communication’s Chairman Pramod Kumar said: “BSP’s ideology does not find space in Punjab due to the dominance of Sikhism and the Arya Samaj.”
According to him, before the BSP entered into state’s political scene in 1992, the SCs and the Backward Classes supported either the Congress or the Left parties — the CPI and the CPI-Marxist. While the CPI-M’s former state Secretary Mangat Ram Pasla maintains the BSP got a foothold in the state as “mainstream Left parties hobnobbed with the Congress in their lust of power and forgot the issues of the Dalits”, Mayawati’s party has been on a downward trend since it got a 16 per cent vote share in the 1992 Assembly election.
In 1996, BSP forged an alliance with Akali Dal-Badal in the general election, and they won three of the four seats. However, by 2017, the party’s share reduced to dismal 1.5 per cent, mainly due to emergence of the AAP.
Veteran journalist Sham Singh told IANS the six-party coalition— Punjab Democratic Alliance — which comprises BSP and AAP rebels, could have made the contest three-cornered on some seats by the decisive caste arithmetic if it had been launched ahead of the poll dates.
He cited the “leadership crisis” for caste politics for not coming up in state. “With the death of Kanshi Ram, BSP’s focus shifted on strengthening its roots in UP. Since then there is a vacuum of leader in Punjab,” he said.
