Jasvin­der Singh of The World Sikh News Delhi desk files this com­pre­hen­sive re­port on the just con­cluded Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment elec­tions, gen­er­ally held once every four years.

Amidst many smil­ing and a few numb faces, the DS­GMC elec­tions con­cluded with 35 of the 46 con­stituen­cies re­turn­ing the in­cum­bent Man­jit Singh GK-led Badal Dal back into the sad­dle for an­other four years, with the op­po­si­tion barely mak­ing a dent into the deeply en­trenched sup­port struc­ture of those run­ning the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara af­fairs.

Pop­ulist promises like those made in gen­eral elec­tions al­lured vot­ers to the rul­ing party and how many of these promises will be de­liv­ered will be in­ter­est­ing to watch. Man­jit Singh GK at­trib­utes vic­tory to his party and Pun­jab Deputy Chief Min­is­ter Sukhbir Singh Badal sees it as a re­jec­tion of AAP and Con­gress.

In­vari­ably like all DS­GMC elec­tions, a pinch­ing point was low voter turnout, se­ri­ously un­der­min­ing the po­lit­i­cal strength of Sikhs in Delhi. Though with a lit­tle over 45%, it was higher than 42 % in the last polls. Out of 3.8 lakh only 1.75 lakh vot­ers cast their fran­chise for 335 can­di­dates who con­tested this time, a much larger num­ber than pre­vi­ous times. The low voter turnout is cer­tainly not a very good sign, and calls for brain­storm­ing. You get what you de­serve!

A well-or­ches­trated cam­paign, mostly in the Hindi lan­guage, hugely sup­ported by Pun­jab-based PTC TV, pro­fes­sional pre­sen­ta­tion of “good deeds and sewa”, the strat­egy to keep the Dera-tainted Badal lead­er­ship at bay and a dis­jointed op­po­si­tion, en­abled the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal to re­tain its po­si­tion.

Many ex­pected a dif­fer­ent sce­nario. What went wrong? Why was there no anti-in­cum­bency? Well, the rul­ing elite pre­sented a thor­ough fo­cused cam­paign, the op­po­si­tion, as usual over the years could not get its act to­gether. Those en­trenched worked the whole year, the op­po­si­tion comes to the fore a few months prior to elec­tions and can­not even join hands to make a vi­able al­ter­na­tive.

New en­trants -Pan­thic Sewa Dal, Sikh Sad­hb­havna Dal and Akal Sa­hai Wel­fare So­ci­ety were able to bag a size­able num­ber of votes in most of the con­stituen­cies, where they con­tested. In a good num­ber of con­stituen­cies, they were able to bag al­most one third of the to­tal num­ber of votes cast, which made a huge dif­fer­ence but led to the op­po­si­tion votes be­ing di­vided and the SAD get­ting the ad­van­tage. The neg­a­tive cam­paign of the Paramjit Singh Sarna-led Akali Dal Delhi did not help them at all and though they won 7 seats, Sarna him­self lost to Badal Dal’s star cam­paigner Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa. The 2-seat vic­tory of for­mer Akal Takht Jathedar Bhai Ran­jit Singh-led Akal Sa­hai Wel­fare So­ci­ety is a good be­gin­ning but a far cry from Pan­thic ex­pec­ta­tions.

Con­sider this: the names of these bod­ies are non-po­lit­i­cal. DS­GMC elec­tions are for man­age­ment of his­tor­i­cal Gur­d­waras and other Sikh in­sti­tu­tions in Delhi, but no one should live in the il­lu­sion that these are only re­li­gious elec­tions. They are re­li­giopo­lit­i­cal elec­tions and should be con­tested with this in mind. Even with months of work, the Bhai Baldev Singh Wadala-led Sikh Sad­hb­havna Dal could not reg­is­ter it­self with the Di­rec­torate of Gur­d­wara Elec­tions in Delhi con­test­ing as in­de­pen­dents. Is­n’t this a per­fect com­bi­na­tion for fail­ure?

The new de­lim­i­ta­tion with polling sta­tions few and far may have af­fected the voter turnout but cer­tainly did not make any dif­fer­ence to the fi­nal re­sults, though a de­tailed analy­sis will show more.

In the next 30 days, two mem­bers will be co-opted, two cho­sen by lot­tery from among the reg­is­tered Singh Sabha Gur­d­waras and one nom­i­nee from SGPC will make it a 51-mem­ber house.

10 Gur­d­waras, 4 col­leges, scores of schools and other in­sti­tu­tions, a de­funct hos­pi­tal and a bud­get of 100 crores await proper man­age­ment and in­fu­sion of a Sikhi spirit. Is the “Panth” still the Badal Dal? Will the Badal Dal seek Sewa over Nawabi like Nawab Ka­pur Singh? Will the Sikh san­gat be vig­i­lant and hold a mir­ror to the promises made dur­ing the elec­tions? Time will tell.