24 Panjab Unions Pose Questions on the Redundancy of the Electoral System

On 27 May, five days before Panjab’s 1 Jun general elections, thousands gathered in Barnala for a Lok Chetna (People Consciousness) rally, organized by 24 farmers and unions (labor and others) with the theme that people need not hold high expectations from electoral democracy. ‘Every five years, people elect governments. But do these governments fulfill the demands of the masses?’ asked Sukhdev Singh Kokrikalan, general secretary of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) Ugrahan. The rally's main organizer is the BKU Ugrahan, the state’s largest farmer union; other unions include the Punjab Khet Mazdoor Union (PKMU), Democratic Teachers Front (DTF), Punjab Students Union (Randhawa), Powercom and Transco Contract Employees Union, Water and Sanitation Contract Employees Union, Forest Mazdoor Union, and the Bhakra Beas Management Board Workers Union, Nangal. Digvijay Pal Sharma, state president of the DTF faction led by Sharma, said, ‘I got recruited in the education department in 2005 under the new pension scheme, and for years we have been struggling to get the old pension scheme reinstated. Four general and state elections have taken place since then but our demand hasn’t been fulfilled. The entire democratic set-up raises a question mark. For example, in 2014, Arun Jaitley lost the election in Amritsar but he was made a union minister.’ Lachhman Singh Sewewala, general secretary of PKMU, said, ‘In the present elections, in Panjab, nine MLAs are contesting the elections. Five of them are AAP ministers. If any of these win, there will be by-polls in Panjab. Who will bear the cost of this poll?’ (SDW Vol. 2 Issue 7, Story 2).