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Gujral blasts Congress, spares BJP, BSP

Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral's poll strategy has been revealed by his blistering attack against the Congress, but total silence about the Bharatiya Janata Party and Bahujan Samaj Party during the second leg of his campaign from Jalandhar.

The prime minister addressed as many as six election rallies in and around the city on Sunday where he is the Janata Dal candidate with the support of the Akali Dal (Badal). While Gujral mocked at the Congress slogan of stability and its ''politics of apologies'' in its bid to woo back minorities, he made no mention of the BJP which has yet to decide on whether or not to support Gujral in his electoral battle against Congress candidate Umrao Singh.

Unlike Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, who described BSP supremo Kanshi Ram as an ''opportunist'' on January 22 at the start of Gujral's campaign, the prime minister maintained silence about the BSP, which, as the Congress's electoral ally in Punjab, can make the electoral battle grim for him.

While the BJP is keeping away from the prime minister's campaign due to the fact that he is contesting from Jalandhar at the invitation of the Akali Dal, which is aligned with the BJP, the BSP is also shying away from launching a frontal attack on Gujral.

Observers said another sailent feature of Gujral's meetings was the large presence of Sikhs, Dalits and other backward classes.

The prime minister began the second leg of his campaign at the dera (monument) of Baba Niranjan Das in Bal village, situated on the city's outskirts on the Jalandhar-Pathankot national highway. The dera is sacrosanct to the Adi Dharmis, a section of the Chamars and other untouchable castes who described themselves so during the 1920s. Adi (primeval) and Dharmi (faith) has remains the adopted name of a large section of scheduled castes in the Doab region of Punjab.

BSP supremo Kanshi Ram, a Chamar from the Doaba region, is widely perceived to be an Adi Dharmi in Punjab. Several Dalit Congress leaders also frequent the dera. Gujral drove straight from the Adampur airbase to the dera where he was blessed by Sant Baba Niranjan Dass in the presence of the sangat (religious congregation).

Gujral's second important engagement took him to the home of radical Akali leader Kuldip Singh Wadala at Wadala village, located within the city's municipal limits. When the premier's motorcade drove down the village road, the kilometre-long pathway to his rendezvous was decorated with banners, flags and buntings of his rival Congress candidate.

Umrao Singh not only lives in the same village but his home is adjacent to his cousin Kuldip Singh Wadala's bungalow.

Although the two cousins and their families interact socially, they have been political adversaries for several decades. Umrao Singh entered the 10th Lok Sabha defeating Wadala by over 100,000 votes in a 1993 by-election from Jalandhar when then chief minister Beant Singh and Akali supremo Parkash Singh Badal camped in the constituency for nearly three weeks each.

After having tactfully bypassed differences between Badal and Wadala (the two parted company on the eve of the assembly election in Punjab last year), Gujral addressed a reception organised by Baba Kashmira Singh, a retired police officer-turned-religious leader, in the posh urban estate.

Inspired by the impressive turnout, it was here that Gujral went hammer and tongs against the Congress, ridiculing its apologies and propagation of stability. He urged the people not to pardon the Congress for its ''inhuman'' acts against Sikhs in Delhi and elsewhere in the country in the aftermath of the assassination of Indira Gandhi.

After lunch, he went on to another impressive reception at Baba Budha Mal Park in the sprawling Bhargava camp, which houses some 100,000 people, mostly Dalits and backwards. Kabir panthis (followers of saint-poet Kabir) had also turned up in strength from Jalandhar and Amritsar.

Gujral's last engagement at Basti Mithu, surrounded by homes of middle class Hindu and Sikhs, was not a disappointment either. But the prime minister, suffering from a running nose and a sore throat since the morning, looked and sounded tired when he rounded off the series of six election rallies in less than ten hours, covering the three city assembly segments of Jalandhar Cantonment, Jalandhar South (reserved) and Jalandhar Central.

Of these, the Cantonment seat is with the Congress; the remaining two with the BJP. Political mobilisation for all rallies was done by the Akalis with the BJP conspicuously absent as they were on the day Gujral kicked off his election campaign on January 22.

Flags, banners and buntings of the Janata Dal, whose nominee Gujral is, were far and few at all rally sites. The party election symbol was missing on the stage at all the rallies. Akali workers were heard commenting that voters might look for the Akali election symbol of scales while scanning ballot papers on polling day, February 16.

The most heartening feature of Gujral's brief visit was the relaxed security environment in the city. People were subjected to minimal hassles, though the basic security drill essential for the prime minister was followed.

Though the Bhargava camp and Basti Mithu rallies were held with lights on at locations situated amid clusters of narrow lanes and bylanes, people did not face any harassment. Shops, wherever open on Sunday, were allowed to do business and a beaming Gujral waved to whoever happened to line up on the sides of the narrow streets.

UNI

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