Former Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab and Shiromani Akali Dal supremo Sukhbir Singh Badal and several other Akali Dal leaders have completed the 10-day tankhah (religious punishment). If the Akali Dal, especially Badal, felt remorseful about earlier events -- the apology handed to Dera Sacha Sauda Chief Baba Gurmeet Ram Rahim, mishandling the 2015 sacrilege cases, and the subsequent Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura police firing on the protesters --the atonement could be termed just right. However, if the party, and especially Badal, are indirectly seeking political rewards in the near future, they are mistaken.
This leaves us with the crucial question. Given the assassination bid on Badal and the buzz about the potential sympathy he might gain out of it, would the political landscape of Punjab see any change? Would there be a dramatic shift or will the post-2022 assembly elections status-quo persist- the shrinking of Akali Dal and the expansion of other political parties, mainly Aam Aadmi Party and to some extent even the Bharatiya Janata Party?
Akali cadre leave in droves
Let’s look at the main political parties beginning with the BJP which was once the younger alliance partner of the Akali Dal in the state. The saffron party may not see any promise in the near future in Punjab but it has made huge strides in terms of gain in vote percentage in the Lok Sabha polls 2024 and also in the recent by-polls held for four assembly seats.
Congress continues to be the main opposition challenging the AAP government in Punjab on the electoral front despite some of its top leaders like Captain Amarinder Singh, Sunil Jakhar and Manpreet Singh Badal having joined BJP. But it’s the AAP that has made major gains in the state and continues to do so – in the recent bypolls, AAP won three of the four seats. While many of the Akali leaders either formed a splinter group between 2017 and now, others joined the BJP, Congress or AAP. But what’s more worrisome is that its cadre has shifted whole hog to AAP and this has left the party walking on quicksand.
To understand why many Sikh voters of Punjab who once voted for SAD may no longer look at it as an option, we have to rewind to the assassination bid on Badal.
Assassination attempt encapsulates contradictions
Sukhbir Singh Badal sat on his wheelchair due to a fractured leg right outside the Harmandir Sahib on December 4 atoning for his sins when Narain Singh Chaura, the man who attempted to kill Sukhbir, aimed a firearm at him. Here it is important to understand that Chaura is representative of how several extreme right-wing Sikhs might feel about Badal. Ironically, it is people like Chaura, many of whom are languishing in jails across India, Badal had vowed to fight for post 2022-assembly polls.
Just four months after losing assembly polls, Badal led a sit-in at Jantar Mantar demanding the release of bandi Sikhs (imprisoned in cases relating to militancy phase in Punjab). Narain Singh Chaura himself is an accused in 21 cases, including the infamous Burail Jailbreak case of Chandigarh. In fact, Chaura could have been one of them languishing in jail.
BJP leader and the Minister of State for Railways Ravneet Singh Bittu took a jibe at Akali Dal recently saying that they should honour Chaura. If the Akalis can hug Balwant Singh Rajoana (a convict awarded a death sentence in the assassination case of former Punjab CM Beant Singh), then they should also felicitate Narain Singh Chaura.
As for Badal, he is caught in a bind: he wants to latch on to panthic politics but he is seen as someone who undermined it.
Imagining a ‘Badal-less’ future
What is the way out for Akali Dal if not for Badal? Probably, only the complete absence of Badal and his family from the higher echelons of the party will help the party pick up the pieces. Many of those once close to Parkash Singh Badal accuse his son Sukhbir of undermining Sikh institutions during his good days. And this began at the time his father and five-time Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal was at the helm of Akali Dal in the late 1990s.
Then, in his speeches, Badal (Sr) discreetly started using words like Punjab, Panjabi, and Panjabiyat replacing the words like Sikh and Panth. But there was a difference between his words and actions. Instead of Punjab, his focus was on how to expand the footprint of his family members in the Akali Dal. So there was the patriarch Parkash Singh Badal, followed by Sukhbir Singh Badal, Manpreet Singh Badal, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Adesh Pratap Kairon, Bikram Singh Majithia, and others. The accusation is what Gandhis did to Congress in 70 years, Badals did to Akali Dal in 20 years.
So after be-adbi, or religious sacrilege, the second most serious charge against the Badals is the domination of one family in the party. This has led to the trust deficit for the Badals within the party and subsequent erosion of its leaders and cadres. The beneficiary of this trend is mostly the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Voters in India do not wish to overthrow the status quo easily, they give politicians a long rope. Akali Dal and Sukhbir Badal are at the end of the rope.
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