The Hindu : Dismal performance by regional parties

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Dec 07, 2003

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Dismal performance by regional parties

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI DEC. 6 . If the performance of the Bahujan Samaj Party in the Delhi Assembly polls fell far below expectations, then the other so-called national or regional parties fared even worse, not even coming a distant third in the final outcome. Be it the Lok Janshakti Party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the two Communist parties - Communist Party of India and Communist Party of India (Marxist) - or the Nationalist Congress Party, all part of the Third Front, were outrightly rejected by the voters of the Capital.

If the BSP, which had its supremo, Mayawati, canvassing in the Capital came runners up in the two Assembly constituencies and a distant third in 23 constituencies, the same cannot not be said about other parties. Although, the independent candidate from the Badarpur constituency, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, won the polls on the NCP symbol, he cannot be really called a member of that party. There is little doubt that the BSP made its presence felt but it could not improve on its previous showing and in the overall average, its share of the total votes polled has come down to 5.75 per cent from 6 per cent in the MCD polls. The party's claim of increasing its vote share to 12 per cent in the Delhi Assembly polls and becoming a deciding factor in the formation of the Government has fallen flat on the face.

As for the Lok Janshakti Party, which had put up candidates in 17 Assembly constituencies, the performance has been nothing short of a nightmare. The party candidates are understood to have polled around 7,000-odd votes in all the seats it contested, despite the fact that its president, Ram Vilas Paswan, had canvassed for the party in the Capital for the past three months. Not only Mr. Paswan, his brother and sitting Member of Parliament, Ram Chander Paswan, also took up the cudgels for the party in Delhi. The poor showing of the Lok Janshakti Party has exposed its inability to get a hold of the Dalit vote bank that could have a bearing on its bargaining power in the Lok Sabha elections next year. The situation is no different for the Rashtriya Janata Dal that also had contested seven seats in the Delhi Assembly polls. The RJD chief, Laloo Prasad Yadav, had canvassed in Delhi for the party candidates drawing huge crowds at his public meetings. However, he failed to translate the crowds into votes and the RJD candidates were nowhere in contention despite the presence of lakhs of Bihari origin voters in the Capital.

As for the NCP, its candidates managed only 1.22 lakhs of the total votes polled in the 33 constituencies it contested. Even the NCP Delhi unit president, Sukhbir Singh Panwar, managed to poll only 3,256 votes in the Malviya Nagar constituency. After having generated heat by his remarks on the foreign origin of the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, in the pre-poll rally at Jehangirpuri, the NCP president, Sharad Pawar, did not turn up to campaign for the party candidates in Delhi. It is clear that the Third Front in Delhi failed to take off and the people showed their preference for the Congress and the BJP in the Assembly polls. This could hamper the coming together of such parties on a single platform in time for the Lok Sabha polls and also firm up the resolve of the Congress not to enter into alliance with such spent forces, at least in Delhi.

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