The Shiromani Akali Dal-Badal headed by Sukhbir Singh Badal is faced with an existential crisis. The party may have taken a strong “ideological” position that eventually closed all options for a possible rapprochement with its long-term ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party.
By fighting the General Elections alone, it runs a high risk of getting further marginalised as badly as during the 2022 assembly elections, when it was reduced to a mere three members in a house of 117.
It is an established fact that the Akalis have never been able to form a government of their own even after the formation of a separate Punjabi-speaking state except in 1985.
This is because of the complex demographics of the state, which restrict the scope of a purely religious party. The same is true about the BJP also as the party is perceived to be representing one particular section of people mainly.
Except in 1985, the Akalis always aligned with the BJP in 1969, 1972, and 1977 (with Bharatiya Jana Sangh, BJP’s original avatar) and then with the BJP in 1997, 2002, 2007, 2012 and 2017.
When the two parties parted ways in 2021, they actually did not have any issues between themselves.
It was external factors like the farmers’ protests, which forced the Akalis, first to quit the NDA government at the centre and then walk out of the alliance itself. And it has gone from bad to worse for the party.
The party came down to a mere 3 despite an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party in the 2022 Vidhan Sabha elections.
There has always been a school of thought within the Akali Dal that opposed any alliance with the BJP. However, the strong and powerful presence of the late Parkash Singh Badal prevented this thought from prevailing.
Late Badal was a sagacious politician, who understood that the Akali-BJP alliance was not only political but social as well, symbolising two prominent religious communities of Punjab.
His belief was duly respected and reciprocated by the BJP’s national leadership of that time, which included late Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Kishen Advani.
Post Vajpayee-Advani era, the BJP transformed into a new aggressive force, particularly after the 2014 and 2019 phenomenal victories.
Conversely, the Akali Dal weakened in Punjab. Late Badal was also in an advanced age. All these factors contributed towards the two long-time alliance partners drifting apart. At the same time, the Akali Dal continued to get weakened in the state for multiple reasons.
This is ironic that despite both the parties in Punjab and their leaders and also the workers in favour of an alliance, they did not align as it goes without saying that the two parties are natural allies, with common foes in the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party.
The alliance did not take place only because the same section of leadership within the Akali Dal which was always opposed to an alliance, forced their opinion on the party not to align with the BJP.
The SAD-B president Sukhbir Singh Badal obviously could not resist the pressure of this section. Probably if he had taken a stand, those leaders might also have fallen in line.
Sukhbir knows it very well that going along with the BJP would have been more beneficial for his party than the BJP.
It is not that the BJP will not suffer losses in the absence of an alliance, the stakes are very high for the Akalis as compared to the BJP.
In any case, the BJP did not win many seats from Punjab in the past. It can afford to draw a blank, which in all probability it will not, but for the Akalis drawing a blank will prove to be suicidal.
Voices against Sukhbir Badal will get louder and bolder. He will risk losing his hold on the party also if the results in the General Elections will not be good.
That the Akalis and the BJP together can prove to be a formidable force is a foregone conclusion. Even in 2022, if the two parties had fought the elections together, they may well have won at least a dozen more seats, as the election result data suggests.
They could have been quite close to winning a dozen more seats, where the margin of defeat for any of their candidates was less than 3000 votes.
Except for the narrative that has been built up in Punjab among a section of the population against the BJP, there is actually nothing against the party.
The BJP government did bring three farm laws, which a section of farmers thought to be against them. Despite the opinion being divided on whether the laws were against the farmers, the BJP government withdrew all three laws.
The farmers stayed put outside Delhi's borders for over a year, causing huge losses to the business and industry besides harassment to lakhs of people. The BJP governments at the centre and in Haryana did not use any force against the farmers. And when the Prime Minister announced the withdrawal of the three laws, he apologised to the farming community.
On the Sikh issues also, Modi has done better than any other Prime Minister in the recent past. Opening the Kartarpur Corridor, quashing the blacklist of several NRIs who were barred from visiting India and reopening the 1984 anti-Sikh riots cases, which led to the conviction and life sentencing of people like Sajjan Kumar are just a few examples.
Both the BJP and the Akali Dal have not been able to communicate these things properly. Instead, the two parties have gone too defensive, the Akali Dal in particular.
Had Parkash Singh Badal been around, the situation would have been completely different. He had the sagacity to handle such situations and confront his opponents.
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