You need a guru in life to guide you. Be it a property dispute between brothers, a good match for marriage, learning a sport or even fighting an election, you need baba’s blessings for just about everything. This belief leads many people in Punjab to seek solace in a dera , the colloquial word for a camp where the baba or spiritual guru provides guidance. Ahead of elections, political leaders queue up before babas. The meetings are keenly watched for indications of which way the deras are leaning given the influence these spiritual gurus wield over their followers. As Punjab moves towards what appears to be a close election, ET travelled to the three most prominent deras in terms of influence.Based in Sirsa in Haryana, this dera has a massive following in Punjab’s Malwa region. Despite courting several controversies, dera head Gurmit Ram Rahim Singh continues to wield influence in India and beyond among lakhs of followers across the US, UK, Canada, Australia and the UAE.Dera Sacha Sauda is the only dera which openly gives a political line to its followers. It operates through political committees formed at block levels. This is the only dera which asked its followers to vote for the Congress in the 2007 election. However, after the party lost the election, the dera head had to bear the consequences as an antagonistic Shiromani Akali Dal -BJP government assumed power.Gurmit Ram Rahim Singh has made amends since and openly supports the ruling combine. Following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation move, Singh gave an elaborate sermon welcoming the decision.“PM Narendra Modi’s decision to demonetise notes is in the national interest and our followers will support this move. When our martyrs can take bullets on their chests for the sake of the country, people of this country will not complain if they have to suffer small hardships for the sake of a positive change,” Singh said at a satsang in Sirsa, just a week after the decision.Even as the Modi government received flak for playing up the surgical strikes on terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Singh has already started shooting a film eulogising the covert operation. It is an open secret that the dera is set to support the incumbent coalition.It is a leg-up for SAD-BJP as the dera has lakhs of followers, especially among Dalits and OBCs, who traditionally vote for the Congress. Singh’s clout is visible in the number of people waiting for a darshan and describing very elaborately their last meeting with the spiritual guru.“He is a rock star. Do you know he may come out of this gate?” gushed Deepender, who waited patiently with his nine family members to give the first wedding card to the dera head.The baba’s security is tight. He ventures out in a cavalcade with private security guards. There are dummy vehicles that travel alongside baba’s car so that people do not know which car he is travelling in.The entire settlement has its own marketplace, c being connected with an overhead flyover to the resort. The entry fee just for a look around inside the resort is a whopping Rs 500.There are whispers that the room rents are as high as Rs 1.5 lakh, something that dera officials did not confirm. Mobile phones are strictly not allowed inside the dera or the satsang hall.Radha Soami Satsang, popularly known as Dera Beasi, is the largest dera in Punjab, with following among all communities.Based in Beas, 50 kilometres from Amritsar, the dera has lakhs of followers across the world. However, it has never aligned itself to any political party. It provides spiritual and philosophical guidance and makes a conscious effort to stay away from politics.However, this does not deter leaders from across the political spectrum to seek an audience with the dera head, Baba Gurinder Singh Dhillon.Singh’s influence can be gauged from the fact that Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, chief ministerial candidate Captain Amarinder Singh, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and the Badals have met him multiple times in the run-up to Assembly elections. The dera does not have any political committees.The guru’s pravachan (discourse) is never on political matters. This makes the meetings very significant as followers get a hint of which way, if at all, the Baba is leaning.Though the dera has had ideological issues with SAD’s philosophy of devotion to Guru Granth Sahib and not to any living guru, the Badals have a close relationship with the dera head. Deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal’s brother-in-law Bikram Majithia is married to the dera head’s niece Ganieve Grewal.With elections round the corner, political meetings have been on the upswing. The SAD-BJP government has appointed Baba Gurinder Singh Dhillon’s brother-in-law Parminder Singh Sekhon as advisor to Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.He has been accorded the status of minister. This is being taken as an indication of Baba’s increasing proximity w i t h S A D .Dhillon makes it a point to balance out such meetings. Followers pointed out that after a meeting with Sukhbir Badal, the Baba went to the house of Sant Baljeet Singh Daduwal, a Takht head who has openly come out against SAD.Dera Ballan, h e a d q u a rt e r e d i n Ballan village in rural Jalandhar, enjoys a following among the Ravidasiya community. It is subdued in comparison to Dera Sacha Sauda’s opulence but commands respect among lakhs of followers in Punjab’s Doaba region, which is dominated by Dalits.Since Congress was traditionally strong in Doaba region, the dera was seen as close to the party. With BSP positioning itself as a party representing Dalits, its leaders have been frequenting the dera. The ties were so close that the foundation stone of the dera’s Guru Ravidass Gate at Varanasi was laid down by BSP founder Kanshi Ram.It was later inaugurated by President KR Narayanan. However, the dera maintains it has welcomed leaders from across the political spectrum. Captain Amarinder Singh, Badals, Mayawati and Kejriwal have been regular visitors this season.When Kejriwal visited the dera recently, the BSP wanted to protest against him but was stopped by the dera. Like most other deras, Dera Ballan officially maintains that it stays away from politics and does not support a political party. The dera’s general secretary Satpaul Virdi said, “We are apolitical.The reason is simple – we don’t know which political party would come to power. Then the easiest thing for them to do is target deras and its followers.”Virdi said that after the dera’s deputy head Sant Ramanand was killed in Vienna in 2009, the Badal government had offered to the dera that they would open a university in his name and the dera should recommend a place.“But we never gave any letter. It is the government’s job; let them do that. This was our way of showing that we will never ask any government for a favour lest it should be taken as affiliation,” said Virdi.However, politicians have elaborate discussions with dera heads. “I have been talking to our dera babaji. He says I am with you. This is all I need,” a sitting MLA, who was recently denied a ticket by his party, told ET on condition of anonymity, This dera does not have political committees. But it has serious differences with the SAD since the dera announced its own separate religion Ravidasiya and holy book Amrit Bani in 2009.The resentment has only grown as the Badal government has resisted the dera’s attempts to replace Guru Granth Sahib with Amrit Bani at community shrines.