The reasons for the Congress’s failure could be elsewhere. The focus Jat Sikhs got under Amarinder Singh won the party support from that section and simultaneously alienated several others. That is one reason for the party’s bad performance overall — particularly in the urban centres that voted for the BJP, which won 19 seats in 2007 compared to three in 2002.

In Amarinder Singh’s cabinet, nine of the 18 ministers were Jats, and the entire state administration was structured in a fashion that weighed in favour of Jats, collaterally decreasing the access of other sections to power. The policy accent of the government always remained sensitive to Jats, creating a sense of dispossession for others in the Congress. The Congress took the Hindu votes for granted — assuming them to be captive voters — and failed to accommodate Dalit aspirations, both Hindu and Sikh. In 2002, Congress had won 14 of the 29 SC reserved constituencies — in 2007, it won seven.

Then there were organisational and tactical failures. Five who were denied Congress tickets won as independents. In four of these five, official Congress candidates came third — indicating that the party’s candidate selection process was out of touch with the ground reality. Two of these seats fell within the parliamentary constituency of the earlier PCC chief, Shamsher Singh Dhullo. The Congress fielded its PCC chief as a candidate, leaving the organisation to be run by clerks at the headquarters for the entire campaign period. Dhullo lost his own seat, which he had taken from his wife, the sitting MLA.

... contd.