Dera factor worked for Congress, but not for BJP

Deepkamal Kaur/ Sukhmeet Bhasin

Jalandhar/Bathinda, June 4

The votes from three big deras of the region seemed to have worked well for the Congress in Jalandhar but not for the BJP in Bathinda.

Former CM Charanjit Singh Channi contested from Jalandhar only after receiving blessings from the Dera Sachkhand Ballan here.

Channi’s association with the dera is well-pronounced since the days he became the CM for 111 days at the fag-end of the Congress tenure in 2022. The dera, led by Sant Niranjan Dass, had organised a huge gathering for him and hymn ‘Gareeb niwaj gusain mera, mathe chhatra dhare’ was played in his honour. At the venue, Channi had handed over a cheque of Rs 25 crore to the dera and made a big announcement of setting up a research centre there in the name of Guru Ravidas.

Of the 16.5 lakh voters from Jalandhar, there are nearly 5 lakh voters from the Adidharam, Ravidassia or Ramdassia community, who are all followers of this dera. As the dera had recently organised the 15th death anniversary of Sant Ramanand, who was gunned down in Vienna, all Jalandhar candidates had attended the event but Channi had got a special treatment. This was an indication to the devotees present there and videos of it had gone viral in the community.

A Congress MLA said, “The fact that Channi won from all four SC segments of Jalandhar — Phillaur, Adampur, Kartarpur and Jalandhar West — is enough to indicate that the dera factor worked here.”

Even though all candidates had also made a beeline to the Dera Radha Soami Satsang Beas and had got themselves clicked with its head Gurinder Singh, the effect of the same could not be somehow known. SAD candidate MS Kaypee is the most frequent visitor to the dera and is known for his closeness there, but he could get only 67,911 votes.

The dera factor fizzled out in Bathinda, where Dera Sacha Sauda is said to have considerable influence on the Bathinda Lok Sabha seat.

Dera followers told The Tribune on anonymity that they got a message to vote for the BJP on the polling day but the BJP failed to win the seat and ended at the distant fourth.

However, dera committee members denied any diktat to vote or support any party. Dera committee member Harcharan Singh said no diktat was given by the dera to vote for anyone.

According to political observers, there had been occasions in the past when several deras, especially the Sirsa-based dera, asked its followers to vote for a particular party in the elections. But this time, there was hardly any impact of such “unofficial” diktat.

The impact of “dera factor” started in 2007 when Sirsa dera chief Gurmeet Rahim Singh issued a diktat to his followers to support the Congress in 2017. Later, in 2017, the dera openly supported the SAD-BJP alliance in Punjab, but despite this the alliance lost badly. Later, it did not announce support for any party openly but supported the candidates and parties from behind.