Congress plans to make law and order poll issue

Monday, 24/12/2012

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20121224/punjab.htm#7

Chandigarh : Having failed to raise the "deteriorating" law and order situation in the state in the winter session of the assembly, the Opposition Congress now plans to make it an election issue in the next parliamentary elections. The ruling SAD, on the other hand, is faced with the challenge of making police reforms work to negate the Congress charges on the law and order front.

In the run-up to the assembly elections earlier this year, the Congress had made the registration of "false" cases against its workers an election issue. Pradesh Congress Committee president Capt Amarinder Singh had focused on the issue and even started an aggressive campaign urging party members not to tolerate Akali "highhandedness".

However, with the SAD coming back to power, the issue died a natural death. The Congress was not able to compile and prove their charges conclusively even when the issue was raised in the Vidhan Sabha. The SAD-BJP government went to town that the Congress charges were "baseless".

Now again, the Congress is taking up the issue of law and order but with a change. Now it is focusing on Revenue Minister Bikram Singh Majithia, who is also the president of the Youth Akali Dal (YAD). Like earlier, Capt Amarinder Singh is leading the charge. The aim is to target Majithia and indirectly Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, who is also the Home Minister.

The strategy also paints Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal as someone who has "no control" over the state with Majithia and Sukhbir calling the shots.

Punjab Congressmen feel they would get "good" response from the people because they have "proof" of "expletives" used by Majithia against Congress MLA Rana Gurjit in the assembly even while "abuses" hurled by Rana got lost in the din.

The SAD, on its part, is adopting a two-pronged strategy to thwart the Congress charges. The Deputy CM is keen to make the police reforms work and is focusing on community policing centres (Sanjh Kendras), which have received lakhs of complaints in the last 13 months since they have opened.

The government is keen to ensure these complaints are looked into in a professional manner, which itself would take care of allegations of bias.

Sukhbir Badal has also made it clear that he is firmly behind Bikram Majithia, saying the Congress was deliberately blaming the latter for all ills in order to target the Badal family and to defame it. However, he is also open to introspection and had already given directions to check the antecedents of all party office-bearers and directed that anyone with a criminal record should be weeded out.

Besides conducting police reforms and focusing on claims that the Congress is bereft of issues, the SAD is keen to take on the Congress politically and weaken it further. The party is wooing a Congress legislator of the Malwa belt who has already decided to resign from the party and join the SAD. The party is planning this to sow further dissensions in the Congress as well as try to prove that the Congress is increasingly becoming electorally irrelevant.