Akali Dal after Badal: Challenges aplenty before Sukhbir
The passing away of Parkash Singh Badal, 95, on April 25 has put the onus of keeping the century-old Shiromani Akali Dal intact and carrying on his legacy on his son, Sukhbir Singh Badal, 60.
The passing away of Parkash Singh Badal, 95, on April 25 has put the onus of keeping the century-old Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) intact and carrying on his legacy on his son, Sukhbir Singh Badal, 60.
Though Punjab’s former deputy chief minister has of late come out of the towering shadow of his father – the Baba Borh (banyan tree) of Akali politics who helmed the country’s oldest regional party for over five decades – it’s no secret that Sukhbir must strive hard to be a ‘Badal’ given its existential crisis having lost successive assembly elections in 2017 and 2022.
The party completed a century in 2020 but is struggling with senior leaders calling it quits, particularly after the 2017 poll debacle.
Sukhbir has been under scrutiny since 2008 when he took charge as SAD chief. “The expectations and challenges are aplenty. Perception matters in politics. Both the SAD and its president are not in an enviable position in public opinion these days,” says Jagrup Singh Sekhon, a former head of the political science department at Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar. He says Sukhbir is expected to revive the SAD as a tangible regional force again and reshape its electoral relevance.
His father was a symbol of consensual politics, the face of Hindu-Sikh amity, a tall leader with grassroots connect who could see ahead of the times, while Sukhbir has deep pockets and development-oriented with an “excel-sheet style” of functioning. Political observers say it can be a win-win for Sukhbir if he is able to blend his father’s traditional wisdom with his contemporary style.
Keeping flock together
Unhappy with the way the SAD was being run by Sukhbir, Taksali (old-time) Akali leaders who rallied around Badal senior ever since he was party chief in 1995, started opting out. In 2017, the SAD was restricted to 15 seats and in 2022, it managed only three seats in the 117-member assembly.
The latest to quit was former Lok Sabha deputy speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal, the party’s Dalit face, who walked out last month after his son Inder Iqbal Singh Atwal, a former Akali MLA, was inducted into the Bharatiya Janata Party and made the BJP candidate for the Jalandhar parliamentary byelection on May 10.
Last year, former Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) Bibi Jagir Kaur, once a Badal loyalist, quit ahead of the gurdwara body’s office-bearer election in November. SAD secretary general Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, who was the second only to Badal Senior in seniority list, and his son Parminder Singh Dhindsa, a former finance minister in the SAD-BJP alliance government, quit in 2019 to form a breakaway faction.
Ranjit Singh Brahmpura accompanied Dhindsa though he returned to the party fold ahead of the 2022 elections. However, former MP Rattan Singh Ajnala has not returned and his son, Amarpal Singh Bony Ajnala, a two-time Akali MLA, joined the BJP.
“After Parkash Singh Badal’s demise, I fear more leaders will leave the SAD,” says Bibi Jagir Kaur, who owes her political career to the Akali patriarch. “He used to empower us and watch from a distance. He was generous in praise and rarely rebuked us”. This is how she remembers her mentor.
Political scientist Sekhon says, “In my opinion, the Iqbal Singh Jhundan committee report recommendations should have been accepted and Sukhbir should have stepped down. If we look at Badal Senior’s life, he used to find survival in withdrawal.
Sukhbir’s confidant Mahesh Inder Singh Grewal, however, differs. He says those who quit the SAD were “already irrelevant politically”.
“The party is on the path of resuscitation. The odds are in his (Sukhbir’s) favour,” he says.
SAD leader Prem Singh Chandumajra says the Jalandhar Lok Sabha byelection will set the tone for the party’s future and he is hopeful that the Akali-BSP alliance will spring a surprise.
Balancing Panth and Punjabiat
Once a force to be reckoned with in Punjab, the SAD’s political stocks are on a downslide. In 2017, the party mustered 25.24% of the total votes polled and fell to 18.38% in 2022. In 2007 when the party formed the government in alliance with the BJP, both parties jointly got 45.37% votes and in 2012 when the coalition came back to power, the combine got 41.91% votes.
After the 2012 victory, Sukhbir was dubbed an election-winning machine but a decade later, he was found wanting in his role with the Panth (Sikh community) and the peasantry, once the core constituencies of the SAD, losing faith. The emergence of a third force – the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which won the 2022 state elections with an overwhelming victory of 92 seats dealt a double blow to the Akalis.
It is to be seen how the SAD wins back the Panthic vote bank, especially after the sacrilege incidents of 2015 when the party was in power. Ironically, the day Badal died, the special investigation team (SIT) probing sacrilege cases and the Kotkapura police firing filed a 2,400-page supplementary chargesheet against him, Sukhbir, who held the home portfolio, former DGP Sumedh Singh Saini and five others.
The SAD faced flak for failing to bring the accused to book and has been struggling to win back the faith of the Panth ever since.
The SAD’s consecutive defeats have led to a vacuum in Panthic politics. “Sikh politics cannot be devoid of religion. What goes in the favour of Akali Dal is that the AAP, BJP and Congress can’t play gurdwara politics even if they desire so. It is to be seen how the SAD under Sukhbir is able to convert this advantage into an electoral success,” says Ashutosh Kumar, who heads the political science department at Panjab University.
The farmers were also angry with the SAD for its flip-flop during the protest against the three farm laws. The SAD initially supported the Centre’s (now repealed) three farm laws in 2020 and later opposed them when it gauged public opinion to the contrary.
Striking the right alliance
In 2021, the SAD severed an alliance of 25 years with the BJP, which many in the two parties say was a knee-jerk reaction to win back the peasantry, but it proved to be a blunder. The SAD lost a strong ally and failed to find favour with farmers.
“In Badal Senior’s demise, Sukhbir has lost his shield. Parkash Singh Badal was an astute politician with state-wide support and cross-party rapport,” adds Ashutosh Kumar.
In 1996, Badal Senior made an astute decision and announced unconditional support to the BJP when Atal Bihari Vajpayee took over as the Prime Minister forging a strong alliance. Thereafter, the SAD-BJP combine was in the government for three terms (1997-2002, 2007-12 and 2012-17). In all these years, Punjab was back in the saddle with peace and harmony after 15 tumultuous years of militancy.
Ahead of the 2022 elections, to improve its political stock, the SAD stitched up an alliance with the Dalit-centric Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) but it proved to be a dampener. It has given the alliance another chance and is fighting the Jalandhar byelection with the BSP.
“The core ideology of SAD is regional autonomy. The Congress, BJP and AAP are national parties so SAD has space to flourish,” says Pramod Kumar, who heads the Institute of Development and Communication.
The BJP also faces challenges in Punjab without the SAD and it is to be seen when and how the alliance between the two old allies happens again.
A keen sculptor in college, Sukhbir would take pride in referring to his father as a “PhD in politics”, but will he take a leaf out of his lessons to model a revival of the Shiromani Akali Dal? Only time will tell.
