Six groups vie for the rights to be cus­to­di­ans of the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee in the gen­eral house elec­tions, slated to be on 22 Au­gust, af­ter be­ing de­layed for a cou­ple of months due to Covid19 pan­demic con­di­tions in Delhi. Sikh voter turnout has al­ways been a con­cern in these elec­tions, though this time, ad­vo­cacy groups, lead­ing per­son­al­i­ties and so­cial me­dia ac­tivists are ex­hort­ing the Sikh San­gat to ex­er­cise their fran­chise, re­ports WSN Delhi Desk’s Gurmeet Singh.

The elec­toral con­test be­tween Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal (Delhi State) Badal, Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal Delhi (Sarna), JAGO Party, Pan­thak Sewa Dal, Sikh Sadb­havna Dal and the Pan­thic Akali Lehar for 46 con­stituen­cies across Delhi has seen some hec­tic ac­tiv­ity in the last week, with can­di­dates and their sup­port­ers mov­ing from house to house to gar­ner sup­port.

With par­ties and can­di­dates fo­cus­ing on so­cial me­dia cam­paign­ing, with no charm among San­gat ex­cept among group cadres, it will be in­ter­est­ing to see how many Sikhs take se­ri­ous in­ter­est in the poll process. The poll day be­ing Sun­day 22 Au­gust, which is also the Rak­sha Band­han fes­ti­val day, adds to fears of a low per­cent­age.

3.45 lakh vot­ers will vote in 46 wards for 312 can­di­dates,180 of which rep­re­sent the six groups and 132 are in­de­pen­dent. This will be the first time when photo-based voter lists will be used to iden­tify vot­ers at polling booths, in or­der to stop bo­gus vot­ing, which was in thou­sands in the last elec­tions in 2017.

In the 2017 Gen­eral Elec­tions, 46 per­cent of the 383,561 reg­is­tered vot­ers, which was only 30.70 per­cent of the adult Sikh pop­u­la­tion of Delhi as per 2011 Cen­sus, ex­er­cised their fran­chise. The win­ning party barely gar­nered 16 per cent votes.

The ma­jor par­ties, ral­ly­ing on their cadres and fixed votes have not done enough to mo­ti­vate peo­ple to come out to vote and don’t seem to be both­ered to work at the mi­cro-level. Poll ob­servers in var­i­ous wards spec­u­late a very low win­ning mar­gin.

Knock­ing on the knuck­les of Sikh vot­ers, ac­tor-ac­tivist Man­meet Singh, in his pop­u­lar style on Face­book, has em­pha­sized that to­day a ma­jor­ity of so­cial work re­volves around the Gur­d­wara com­mit­tees, Delhi Sikhs voice their con­cerns about wrong­ful acts and cor­rup­tion but do not vote. He has fer­vently ap­pealed to the Delhi Sikh voter to vote, though he has not taken any sides for a group of a can­di­date. In his suc­cinct and touch­ing post, with his ubiq­ui­tous smile, he has also ap­pealed to can­di­dates who will win to work as per the Sikh way of sewa and to take care of Sikh in­sti­tu­tions.

Set­ting a new trend, renowned Kir­taniya Bhai Man­preet Singh Kan­puri, while ad­dress­ing the Sikh San­gat in a Delhi Gur­d­wara said, ” You are all well ed­u­cated and learned, then why should you not vote?”

“90% of peo­ple who do not con­sume al­co­hol do not vote, thereby los­ing the right to say that Sikhism is not mov­ing in the right di­rec­tion,” he added.

“If we elect a per­son who does act as per Sikh ethics, then the onus is on us.”

He called upon the younger gen­er­a­tion, say­ing, while we are very choosy about our petty pe­cu­niary needs, we shy away from choos­ing our rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Every sin­gle voter should vote.

Lead­ing in­dus­tri­al­ist Iqbal Singh Anand has ap­pealed to Sikhs to come out in large num­bers to vote.

Sim­i­larly, the Sikh Fo­rum of Delhi and The Sikh Col­lec­tive have ap­pealed to the Delhi Sikh San­gat to vote. World Sikh News and other me­dia groups have car­ried on so­cial me­dia cam­paigns, ap­peal­ing to all sec­tions of the com­mu­nity to be aware of their rights and to vote for re­spon­si­ble can­di­dates.

Sig­nif­i­cantly, af­ter a long time, this DS­GMC elec­tion will see min­i­mal in­ter­fer­ence and in­ter­ven­tion by Pun­jab-based party sup­port­ers of re­spec­tive groups.

The cur­rent voter count is around 345,000. Let’s see how many de­vote their time, es­pe­cially on a fes­ti­val day and how many will con­tinue to pay lip ser­vice and cry wolf.