Mohinder Singh was disgruntled with the manifestos of the major parties that contested the just-concluded Assembly polls in his state of Punjab. Reason: none carried a major mention about the welfare of farmers — his community. Nonetheless, the middle-aged peasant voted eventually in the January 30 elections.
So has Gurmeet Chand, 70, a retired education officer from Hoshiarpur district, who has been voting since past five decades.
In short, if the state registered a 78.67% voting percentage during the elections, it is largely because the state’s farmers did turn up well to exercise their franchise. While this is a record, it’s not as if the fertile and agrarian state had all this while been facing a low turnout at the poll booths. In fact, the voter participation in Punjab has been fairly good — averaging around and above 65 per cent since the state was re-organised in 1966. (The percentage was poor only in 1992, when the Shiromani Akali Dal boycotted the election.) The poll percentage was around 68 in the 1997 elections and 65 in 2002, while it jumped to around 75 in 2007 elections.
So, how has the poll percentage mostly been impressive? Pramod Kumar, who heads the Institute of Development Communication (IDC), says it has more to do with the culture of the state’s people than its prevailing politics. “The contesting candidates always ensure good participation of voters”, he notes.
Agrees Gurnam Singh, 40, who says he has voted in all the assembly and parliamentary elections for the past two decades. “The candidates ensure that each and every eligible member for the family in the villages goes for voting. The contestants mobilise voters through local workers,” he notes. “Almost all of them have this fear of losing elections by a close margin.”
That trend reportedly prevailed in the latest state elections as well. Media reports were abuzz with stories of candidates having arranged for conveyance to take voters to the polling booth. “That every fourth of five voters exercise franchise is a positive indication of a vibrant democracy,” believes Ashutosh Kumar who teaches political science in Panjab University here. Also, religion and kinship are factors that decide the voting percentage, he adds.
Jasbir Singh, a 20-year-old villager, says he personally knows most of the contestants in his constituency. “So, I have no choice, but to vote,” he chuckles. Punjab, with a 2.77-crore population and occupying 1.5 per cent area of the country, has over 20 religious sects with each having several thousand followers, according to IDC, which is a research organisation here. The religious sects, called deras, urge the followers to vote. This is another reason why you see high voter turnout,” adds IDC’s Kumar.
Further, for the state’s people, elections are like fairs, he adds. “Fairs are traditionally a part of Punjab’s popular culture. The major ones among them — such as Maghi fair, Shahidi Johr Mela — usually witness mass participation even as prominent political parties make their presence felt at such events,” Kumar notes. “Those fairs virtually set the state’s political tone.”
Centre for Reseach and Rurual Development says people in the state are conscious about the vitality of elections in their future life. “This adds to the polling percentage,” according to S S Singh, director of the institute here.
