Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 9: For a host of reasons, results of the four Panchayat representative seats in Legislative Council can not be taken as a scientific or authentic barometer to assess how the ordinary voter was looking at the peoples’ representatives he elected in 2008 or what kind of hopes he was pinning on the opposition parties and other independent candidates four years later.
Firstly, the Panchayat elections in 2011 were held on non-party basis and the recent ones for the four vacancies in the 36-member LC were conducted on party basis. To further simplify, it means the elector last year voted for Mr Sharma, Mr Gupta, Mr Bhat, Mr Mir, Mr Wani or Mr Kaul, not for Congress, National Conference (NC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Bharatya Janata Party (BJP), National Panthers Party (NPP), BSP, CPM or other political parties—all professing varied political philosophies and ideologies and promoting their respective stated political positions vis-à-vis Jammu and Kashmir State’s problems and solutions.
Village, mohalla, caste, religion, sect, tribe, plays often an insignificant role in our larger electoral diversity, say in Assembly or Lok Sabha elections, where such microscopic constituents have limited potential of tilting the balance in favour of or against a candidate or party. On the other hand, same constituents often prove to be decisive in electing Panchs and Sarpanchs whose constituency is bound to a ward or a mohalla or a cluster of dwellings in a neighbourhood.
Secondly, there is a world of difference between the dynamics of different elections. In the system existing in the Indian body politic, it is well possible that a particular political party can win all Assembly segments of a district but its Parliamentary candidate from the same expanded constituency can lose to a better candidate of another party, or vice versa. That clearly means a political party can win or lose an Assembly segment but its results in different Panchayat Halqas can be completely reverse. Further, yesterday’s Panchayat elections were held on the mapping of a community development block which essentially does not correspond to an Assembly constituency.
Thirdly, by all admissions, influencing of a hundred Panchs and Sarpanchs in a particular block is far easier and practical for different political parties and officials—District Development Commissioners, Assistant Commissioners of Development, District Panchayat Officers and Block Development Officers—but motivating, influencing, bribing, provoking or indoctrinating one Lakh voters in an Assembly constituency or 15 Lakh voters in a Lok Sabha constituency is virtually impossible. While the anti-incumbency factor in Assembly and Lok Sabha elections plays a significant role—often against the sitting MLAs and MPs—incumbency proves to be an advantage in rural and urban local body elections.
Fifteen Lakh voters of a Parliamentary constituency or one Lakh electors of an Assembly segment want the Government and their representatives assert in the fields of governance and services. They want to have pure potable water to drink, macadamized roads to walk or drive on, jobs to feed themselves and their families, better healthcare, uninterrupted electricity and 12 subsidized LPG cylinders a year.
Contrarily, most of the electors of the four MLCs [33,540 Panchs and Sarpanchs in a State of 70 Lakh voters] want to grab and execute rural development works at Panchayat Halqa level through their family members, relatives and friends. For that, more than India and Pakistan, more than autonomy and abrogation of Article 370, more than the Government’s delivery systems, they are invariably concerned about the volume and frequency of funds made available to a Halqa.
To fulfill their interest, much more than an MLA’s, an MP’s or a party’s blessings they need good relationship with the executive—Village Level Worker (VLW), who now performs as Secretary of his or her Panchayat, BDO, ACD and DDC. So, it may not be simply out of naiveté or the government’s human resource crunch that Rs 2,000-crore a year MG NREGA funds have been placed at the mercy of illiterate or Matriculate VLWs who have been disbursing same among the recommended “mates” and “contractors” of Sarpanchs and Panchs despite the fact that there is no room for the PWD-type tender and contractor system or the traditional Rural Development Department “mate-system” in the UPA Government’s flagship scheme, called MG NREGA. For all practical purposes, VLW is the drawing and disbursing officer of NREGA unlike Executive Engineer in all other works departments.
Fourthly, unlike the MLAs and MPs who are strictly governed by a long list of laws and rules—including the draconian anti-defection law—Sarpanchs and Panchs are a footloose army, free to swap political membership and loyalty. Yet to be designated as ‘public men’, they care two hoots for integrity and honesty in exercising their franchise for the MLCs who will claim to represent the Panchayat members in Upper House of the state Legislature.
Given that all, the number of the seats won or lost by any particular political party in the recent elections does not count anywhere with regard to prospects in the next Assembly and Lok Sabha election, in 2014. One is free to view it from one’s angle, be that a hard reality or wishful thinking. For example, the ruling coalition of NC and Congress has all the reasons of cheer as it has “swept the polls” and won all the four seats. Main opposition parties, namely PDP in Kashmir and BJP in Jammu, according to the coalition, must drown in shame as neither of them has been able to get even a single seat.
Arithmetically, however, there is an alternative peephole. Who can dispute the fact that PDP and NPP have lost four each, BJP and BSP have lost three each while as NC and Congress have lost two each. None of these contesting parties has four or even three in its kitty.
By this picture, the ruling coalition’s euphoria over “sweeping the polls” may be grossly misplaced and no indication of a similar scenario obtaining in the forthcoming test at the hustings is in sight. Even the prospect of an alliance in 2014 seems to be blurred as in UPA, Congress has an assured seat-shearing only with the parties who were its allies in 2004 and 2008 Lok Sabha elections.
Additionally, one can not lose sight of the facts that an Anantnag-Baramulla- centric party has, inspite of its failure to win a seat, spread its tentacles to an expanse of the hinterland in both regions of the state—notably in border areas like Tanghdar and Teetwal and the BJP’s urban stronghold in Jammu. Mufti Sayeed’s spirits over PDP “for the first time” becoming a “pan-J&K party” does not appear to be totally out of sync.
Lastly, one fails to understand, why performance of MLCs and MLAs in this election for four seats should have a “bearing on the (cabinet) reshuffle that is being discussed”. One can easily find nincompoops and “corrupt” ministers and legislators having registered “impressive performance” in yesterday’s election. Same people have been a damn failure in operating their portfolios and reaching out to the masses who elected them as their representatives in 2008. On the other hand, even a high-performance Minister or legislator can cut a sorry figure in the competition of wooing, influencing and trapping Sarpanchs and Panchs.
The ruling coalition, nevertheless, could be genuinely proud of having conducted yet another democratic exercise of empowerment of Panchayati Raj Institutions fairly and smoothly—no allegations of rigging have poured in, so far—-in the face of heavy odds. Ninety-six percent turnout, which remains unmatched in the history of all elections in the state, despite cold weather in Kashmir and Ladakh, call of boycott from the separatist stalwart Syed Ali Shah Geelani and threats from Hizbul Mujahideen and United Jihad Council, calling the defaulters as “traitors of the freedom movement”, must serve a wake-up call, if not eye-opener, for many of the self-styled stake-holders of the Kashmir turbulence.
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