Explaining the Loss of the SAD-BJP Alliance and AAP: Role of Poor Governance and Policy Paralysis

91 Sucha S. Gill: Explaining the Loss Explaining the Loss of the SAD-BJP alliance and AAP: Role of Poor Governance and Policy Paralysis Sucha S. Gill Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development _______________________________________________________________ Due to deterioration in governance and failure of the SAD-BJP ruling alliance to handle major problems of the state, it was becoming clear a year ahead of elections that there will be change in government in the state. But it was not clear which party will replace the ruling alliance. Many observers believed that AAP will be able to form the government in view of their early campaign and mobilization both in rural as well in the urban areas. But as the campaign picked up AAP faced serious internal differences in selection of candidates leading to splits in the party with allegations and counter allegations. On the other hand the Congress party was able to consolidate internally and was able to add some leaders from SAD, BJP and APP. The Congress Party was not only able to consolidate and present a united face it was also able to announce the name of its projected Chief Ministerial candidate before elections. Apart from other problems AAP could not decide on its Chief Minister candidate due to internal conflict and ultimately it lost the initial lead, creating winning space for the Congress Party. _______________________________________________________________ Introduction The 2017 election to the Punjab assembly after ten years of Akali Dal-BJP rule acquired special significance because previously no party or alliance had been able to win consecutively for two terms after reorganization of Punjab in 1966. At the same time this alliance had strong support from the ruling NDA government at the Center led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Due to poor performance of the ruling alliance to handle the agrarian crisis, slow down of economic growth and deterioration of governance, a powerful challenge was thrown by Indian National Congress and AAP in the state. This was a highly contested election due to the entry of AAP in the field with its vast mobilization of youth. This election was held with pending socio-economic crisis, wide spread drug abuse, suicides by farmers and agricultural laborers, massive youth unemployment, governance deficit and crippled state finances. While the ruling alliance remained in denial mode, other parties focused on these issues which they argued needed to be handled in the post-election period. This paper examines the factors and causes of outcomes of this election in the state. Attempt has been made to identify the role of poor governance and incapacity of the SAD-BJP government to take cognizance of the pending issues, formulate and implement relevant policies and link them to the outcome of the election. The JSPS 25:1 92 behavior of the contenting parties in organization of the election campaign, building of alliances and projection of effective leadership are also relevant to understand the results of these elections. The paper is organized into five sections, in addition to the introduction. Section one covers the outcome of elections. Poor governance is discussed in section two while section three deals with policy paralysis in the state. The fourth section analyses the way AAP lost the game to the Indian National Congress. The last section makes some concluding observations. Outcome of the 2017 Assembly Election Election results of Punjab Assembly elections held on 4th February 2017 and results declared on March 11, 2017 have surprised the major players. The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) combine experienced an unprecedented drubbing. The Congress Party emerged victorious beyond its own expectations. The third player, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), expecting a landslide victory, performed poorly finishing at a distant second place. In terms of seats, Congress won 77 out of the total 117 it contested. The AAP could manage only 20 seats on its own with two seats going to its ally, the Punjab Insaf party. The SAD-BJP alliance could only manage 18 seats, down by 53 seats whereas the Congress gained 31 more seats compared to the 2012 election. The remaining loss of 22 seats of the SAD-BJP alliance has been AAP’s corresponding gain in 2017. In terms of vote share, the Congress Party experienced a decline from 40.1 per cent in 2012 to 36.6 per cent in 2017 but still improved from its 34.6 per cent in the 2014 parliament elections to 36.6 per cent in the Assembly elections in 2017. The SAD-BJP alliance lost its vote share of 41.9 per cent in 2012 Assembly elections to 33.9 per cent in the parliament elections in 2014 and further to 30.6 per cent in the 2017 Assembly elections. The AAP, of course, did not exist during Assembly elections of 2012. The AAP participated in the parliament elections of 2014 and got 23.6 per cent of the total polled votes which it has retained in the 2017 Assembly elections of Punjab with a vote share of 23.7 per cent. It was able to eat mainly into the SAD-BJP vote share which shrunk in both the major elections of 2014 and 2017.The SAD-BJP lost 8 per cent of its vote share between 2012 and 2014. Other smaller parties namely CPI, CPI (M), BSP and independents got 18.0 per cent of the polled votes in 2012 assembly elections but this declined to 7.0 per cent in 2014 and stood at only 7.2 per cent in the 2017 Assembly elections. It is evident that the AAP managed to win mainly the anti-incumbency SAD-BJP votes and also votes which have traditionally been against both the Congress and the SAD-BJP combine, generally votes of left parties and also votes of BSP. The Congress party recovered its vote loss between 2012 Assembly elections and the parliamentary election in 2014 (4.6 per cent point) in the 2017 Assembly elections (3.0 per cent point). Although the vote share of AAP (23.7 per cent) in the 2017 election is less than that of SAD-BJP (30.6 per cent) yet the seats it had won were 20 compared to SAD-BJP’s 18 seats. This is largely because AAP has performed comparatively better in the Malwa region of the state. In the Malwa 93 Sucha S. Gill: Explaining the Loss region, it has done particularly well in a specific belt of Malwa, represented by Jagraon, Moga, Barnala and Mansa regions. As for the rest of the state, its performance has been very poor in the Majha region and only moderate in Doaba region. It could not win any seat in Majha region and only managed to win two seats in the Doaba region, compared with the 18 seats it won in the Malwa region, especially from the belt mentioned above. In spite of a lower vote share compared to the SAD-BJP, the AAP has emerged as the main opposition party in terms of number of seats in the state. The Congress Party has done well in all the three regions of Punjab. It won 22 out of 25 seats in Majha, 15 out of 23 seats in Doaba and 40 out of 69 seats contested in the Malwa region. It has won from the traditional Hindu majority seats in cities of Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Bathinda, Moga, Faridkot, Bathinda and Rajpura (Vasudeva, 2017). It has also done well in belts with sizeable Dalit votes in the rural areas of Jalandhar, Nawanshahr, and the Sikh dominated rural areas of the entire state. In this election the Congress has seen the return of Dalit and Hindu votes, in addition to the Sikh Jat (peasantry) votes. This paper examines the causes of decline of the SAD-BJP alliance after ten years of continuous rule on one hand and the failure of AAP which lost the early gains and popularity at the beginning of the election campaign, a campaign which in fact started almost one year in advance of the scheduled election. Poor Governance and: Deterioration in Law and Order The return of Congress to power in the state and decline of the SAD-BJP can be explained in terms of governance failure and policy paralysis. The SAD-BJP Government constituted the Governance Reforms Commission in the state in 2009 under the chairmanship of Dr. Pramod Kumar and was reconstituted in 2012 retaining him as chairman, which made a series of recommendations especially relating to time bound services to the citizens and making official records available online. Up to February 2017, the number of notified services were 351 under the Right to Service Act 2011 (Agarwal, 2017). In several cases, such as applications for succession certificate, dependence certificate, marriage palaces, ex-India leave, for ration cards, reimbursement of medical bills, marriage certificate, etc. the requirement of submission of an affidavit has been abolished and self-attestation of documents introduced. This list includes 38 services provided by the state government. But, governance in the state deteriorated because of collusion between the service providers, such as police, civil administration and transport authorities, with the politicians (Kumar, 2017). The SAD-BJP government made a notification in 2010 to change the jurisdiction of police stations and sub divisions within districts to synchronize with assembly constituencies and appointed Akali Dal functionaries as Halqa (constituency) in-charges. The Station House Officers (SHOs) and Sub Divisional Magistrates (SDMs) were placed under the halqa in-charges for day to day functioning, making the police and civil administration look partisan. The Akali MLAs were appointed as halqa in-charges where the party had won JSPS 25:1 94 elections and defeated Akali candidates or potential candidates were made halqa in-charges where the party lost in elections including in the constituencies where the MLA belonged to its ally, BJP.

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