February 23, 1998
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POLL 98:
ELECTION IMAGES Cont...  Amarinder Singh CONGRESS Patiala Punjab For the Maharaja of Patiala the election campaign is a matter of family ties. First, there is his own relationship with his former subjects -- his family traces its links back to the sixth Sikh Guru. Then there's the campaign itself. The royals are out in full force after dividing the nine assembly constituencies in Patiala among themselves: the Rajmata, a former Congress MP, looks after Lehra Gagga and Sunam, the Maharaja's wife Parneet Kaur is campaigning in Patiala city, son and heir apparent Raninder has his work cut out in Dakala, and so on.
When the 55-year-old Amarinder Singh steps out, mobile in hand, he is accompanied by a motley crew: a local MLA, his political secretary, sundry cheerleaders comprising youth Congress volunteers and, invariably, some family members. A former army captain, he is contesting against the Akali Dal candidate Prem Singh Chandumajra. But Chandumajra is SGPC chief Gurcharan Singh Tohra's protege and everyone knows that the defeat of Chandumajra will, in effect, be a defeat for Tohra, one of Amarinder's most bitter detractors: "My fight is with Tohra," he says. But there's more at stake. Amarinder had quit the Congress after Operation Bluestar and rejoined the party recently after an acrimonious falling-out with the SGPC chief. Defeat now will be a terrible humiliation for the prodigal. To the uninitiated, Amarinder's blue turban seems to signify his blue blood. Far from it. Blue is not only the colour of what is known as the naram (moderate) Dal -- as opposed to the more aggressive saffron of the garam (hardline) Dal -- it's also the colour of the Dalits on whose support he must now depend. "I work with my hands and I will vote for the hand," says Gurmer Kaur of Harpalpur. "But I know that nobody is really going to help us." Royalty is dead. Long live the king. -- Namita Bhandare |
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