By Ajay Gupta
CHANDIGARH: By making incumbent chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi as its chief ministerial face in the upcoming elections, the Congress has changed the dynamics of Punjab politics forever.
Barring Giani Zail Singh, all Punjab chief ministers since 1966 have been from the Jat Sikh community whose socio-political ascendancy began with the creation of the new Sikh-majority state (in 1966) and the advent of the Green revolution.
But with Channi’s elevation, caste will now become deeply embedded state politics. Since Dalits make up almost a third of Punjab’s population, you are always going see a Dalit in any of the top positions – chief minister, deputy chief minister or party chief. Taking a cue from the Dalit community, even other backward castes (OBCs) – who also make up about one-third of Punjab’s population – have started flexing their political muscle.
The Congress, which is losing votes in all communities, has chosen Channi with an eye on votes of the huge Dalit community which also makes up about one-third of the state’s population.
Will this trick of the Congress party work? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Out of 117 seats in the Punjab assembly, 34 are reserved for the Dalits.
However, if you look at the Dalits in Punjab, they are not a homogenous caste. They are divided into Ramdasias, Ravidasias, Mazhbis and Valmikis as the figures below show. And there are rivalries among them.
The 2011 population census showed that there were 88.6 lakh Dalits in Punjab, making up about 31.9 per cent of its population. Out of these, 19.4 per cent were Sikh Dalits, 12.4 per cent Hindu Dalits and 0.98 per cent Buddhist Dalits.
They are further sub-divided into Mazhabis (26.33 percent), Ravidasias and Ramdasias (20.7 percent), Ad-dharmis (10 percent) and Valmikis (8.6 per cent).
Now the point is: will Channi – who is a Ramdasia Sikh – be able to win all Dalit votes for the Congress party? Very unlikely.
Two big groups of Punjab Dalits – Ravidasias and Ramdasias – have faith differences.
In Doaba, Dalits account for about 45 percent of the population and most of them are Ravidasias – about 60 percent. They are followers of Dera Sach Khand which has its headquarters at Ballan. The followers of Dera Sach Khand don’t consider themselves to be Sikhs or Hindus. In fact, they removed the Sikh holy granth from the Dera after the killng of their saint Rama Nand in Vienna in 2009.
Channi visited the Dera at Balan after becoming the chief minister and later spent a night there sleeping on the floor. Doaba has 23 seats. Will Dera followers vote the Congress because of Channi? Only time will tell because the Dera doesn’t direct its followers to vote for a particular party.
On the other hand, most Dalits in the Malwa region are Ramdasias and Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda has a huge following among them. Their votes are important because Malwa has the largest number of 69 assembly seats in the state, compared to Doaba (23) and Majha (25).
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) did very well in Malwa in 2017 because of the Ramdasia community. Since some Dera followers have allegedly been involved in incidents of sacrilege of the Sikh holy book and both the Akali Dal and the Congress party have been under fire for these incidents, it will be interesting to see whether Dera Sacha Sauda followers from the Dalit community will be swayed by Channi?
His decision to also contest from Bhadaur in the Malwa region is clearly aimed at wooing the Dalit community of the seat-rich region.
Channi’s projection as its CM faces also comes with losses for the Congress party.
By ignoring Navjot Singh Sidhu, the Congress will definitely lose committed Jat Sikh votes which are already getting divided among the Sanyukt Samaj Morcha, the Akali Dal and AAP.
By choosing Channi, the Congress will also lose some committed upper-caste Hindu/Sikh votes which would now go to the BJP-Captain Amarinder Singh-Dhindsa combine.
So what the Congress gains among the Dalit community by projecting Channi as its chief ministerial face, it also loses among other communities.
And the strak fact is that the party is a divided house heading into the election.
Sidhu has promised to support Channi, but the peace between them won’t hold for long. Just wait for Sidhu’s next tweet.
It is an uphill task for Channi. The seizure of Rs 8 crore in cash and subsequent arrest of his nephew have only made his task harder.
In a nutshell, the Congress has little chance under him.
