Shiromani Akali Dal is the second oldest political party in the country after the Congress. It was founded on December 14, 1920. It has been a party of patriots and nationalists.
In 1947, the Shiromani Akali Dal firmly stood against the partition of the country. When partition became inevitable, the party stood by India.
SAD throughout history
During the dark era of terrorism, the Shiromani Akali Dal suffered as much as any other political party, with its leaders falling prey to the militants’ bullets, including the sitting president Sant Harchand Singh Longowal, who was shot dead by militants following the Rajeev-Longowal Accord.
In the post-independent era, particularly since the 1970s, there were attempts to weaken the Shiromani Akali Dal.
It led to the formation of some splinter groups. There still are many.
However, it is the Shiromani Akali Dal-Badal, headed by Sukhbir Singh Badal, which inherits the real Akali legacy. Shiromani Akali Dal and Shiromani Akali Dal-Badal are the same thing.
It is a sad fact of history that the Shiromani Akali Dal became the victim of petty politics. It was sabotaged from within the community with the support of outsiders.
Zail Singh, Indira and the Akalis
Former President of India, Giani Zail Singh, who was earlier the Chief Minister of Punjab and also the Union Home Minister before becoming the President of India, was a bitter critic and opponent of the Shiromani Akali Dal.
Given the emotive and aggressive nature of Punjabis, political rivalries here are always fierce. Everything is fair in this game in the proverbial way.
Zail Singh used his proximity with his leader and the then Prime Minister Ms Indira Gandhi to settle political scores with the Akalis. Ms Gandhi did not have any love lost for the Akalis, particularly after their aggressive opposition to the ‘Emergency’ imposed by her.
The former Prime Minister had some natural and innate aversion for the regional parties, whether the Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab or the National Conference in Jammu and Kashmir and even a new party Telugu Desam Party of Andhra Pradesh.
Zail Singh exploited Ms Gandhi’s aversion to the regional parties to weaken the Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab. It is a well-known fact that Giani Zail Singh promoted and patronised radical and extremist elements among the Sikhs to weaken the Akali Dal, which eventually ended in a devastating era that left tens of thousands of Punjabis dead.
Recent experience suggests that wherever the moderates have been weakened, whether in Jammu and Kashmir or Punjab, the extremists have emerged stronger. They end up so strong that it takes ages to tame and curb them. Both J&K and Punjab are two examples.
Punjab’s redemption
Thankfully, Punjab was redeemed from the dark era, but not without the heavy price it paid in terms of the loss of human lives, not just within Punjab but outside also like in the aftermath of Ms Indira Gandhi’s assassination at the hands of her own Sikh bodyguards. Thousands of innocent Sikhs were butchered to death in the anti-Sikh riots in different parts of the country, including Delhi, which saw a virtual anti-Sikh pogrom.
The Shiromani Akali Dal under the leadership of Parkash Singh Badal had a great role in helping to redeem Punjab and put it back on the path of healing when he took over as the Chief Minister of Punjab in 1997, in the first “credible” elections since 1980. Although in between there were two state elections in 1984 and 1992, these lacked credibility, while the latter was the least representative.
Not a family run party
Unlike other regional political parties, the Shiromani Akali Dal was never a family-run political party. Its leadership was never bequeathed to the successor on the basis of family connection. Other regional parties like the National Conference in J&K, Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana, Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar etc are family-run political parties having been founded by popular leaders who bequeathed it further to their successors within the family.
The Shiromani Akali Dal was born out of a mass movement of Sikhs, primarily for liberating the Gurdwaras from the control of Mahants. It was provided full support and strength by the entire community. It was for the first time in 88 years of its history when in 2008, Parkash Singh Badal passed the baton of the party to his son Sukhbir Singh Badal. Sukhbir Badal continues to be the president of the Akali Dal since then. He may probably be the longest-serving president of the second-oldest political party in the country.
Resentment against Sukhbir
Sukhbir’s elevation was initially resisted by Gurcharan Singh Tohra, the then SGPC president in 1999. However, at that time Badal averted a full-fledged rebellion and split, primarily because he was in power and partly because there was a friendly BJP-led NDA government at the centre. Once Tohra realised that he couldn’t fight Badal, he reconciled with him and eventually, they came together.
The ultimate resentment against the Badal family started from the day Sukhbir was formally appointed Shiromani Akali Dal president. It remained subdued for a long time as the party was in power.
The grip was further strengthened when the Shiromani Akali Dal returned to power in 2012, breaking a long tradition, by getting reelected. Sukhbir, who had taken control of the party in 2008 was credited with the success and was described as the “master strategist” who knew how to win the elections.
But winning elections alone does not make one a great leader. The downfall of the Shiromani Akali Dal and that of the Badals started in that term itself owing to some decisions, that were not liked by the Sikh population, the core support base of the party.
The appointment of Sumedh Singh Saini as the Director General of the Punjab Police and the pardon granted through the Akal Takhat to Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh led to widespread resentment. And as if that was not enough, the sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib in Bargadi in Faridkot district and the subsequent incidents, all went against the Akalis in general and the Badals in particular.
SAD’s decline in Punjab
The decline since then has been progressive and continuous. In the 2017 assembly elections, the Akalis were reduced to 18 seats from 68 in 2012. The decline continued in 2022 also when the Shiromani Akali Dal was reduced to just three seats in the Punjab assembly, with five-time Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal losing for the first time from his family bastion of Lambi. Sukhbir Badal also lost from Jalalabad.
2024 General Elections were the worst for the party. Although it won the Bathinda parliamentary constituency, it could get just 13 per cent of vote share, coming fourth behind the Congress, the Aam Aadmi Party and the BJP in terms of the vote share.
While the rumblings against Sukhbir Badal had started long before, even while the senior Badal was alive, these have now become more pronounced and aggressive. With the senior Badal no more in the scene and the devastating drubbing of the 2024 General Elections, there has been an open revolt against Sukhbir Badal’s leadership. Senior leaders have been demanding that he step aside in the interest of the party.
Senior ranks rebel
These leaders, who included some close confidantes of Sukhbir like Prem Singh Chandumajra, Sikander Singh Maluka, Surjeet Singh Rakhra and others held a meeting in Jalandhar on Tuesday.
The meeting, in clear defiance of Sukhbir, coincided with another meeting of the assembly constituency ‘in-charges’ convened by Sukhbir Badal at the party headquarters in Chandigarh. 112 constituency in-charges attended the meeting and reposed their faith in Sukhbir’s leadership.
Sukhbir’s wife and Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal and another Sukhbir loyalist and prominent Akali leader from Delhi Paramjit Singh Sarna, both have accused their former ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party of trying to “engineer” the division under “Operation Lotus”.
Their claims notwithstanding, there is a widespread sentiment against the Badals controlling the Shiromani Akali Dal. The leaders who have rebelled against Sukhbir have genuine concerns.
The radicals are occupying the space of the moderate Akalis. There is a feeling that if Sukhbir is replaced, the Shiormani Akali Dal will be able to retrieve the space it has conceded to the radicals like Amritpal Singh, who got elected as an independent candidate from the Khadoor Sahib parliamentary constituency.
There is a genuine widespread concern that the moderate Akali space must not be allowed to remain vacant for a long time as the radicals and extremists will grab it. Khadoor Sahib and Faridkot, from where the son of Ms Indira Gandhi’s assassin Sarabjeet Singh Khalsa got elected, results have raised concern.
These two results are not representative of Punjab. But these are indicative of a trend that the moderates are losing ground to the extremists. In the rest of the 10 parliamentary segments also, the moderate Akalis did not fare any better. But it was either the Congress or the AAP which won from there.
The onus is on the Akali leadership, Sukhbir Singh Badal in particular, to preserve and strengthen the hundred-year-old legacy of the Shiromani Akali Dal, which is genuinely considered as the representative party of the Sikhs. Recent trends have suggested that the party is fast losing that claim of being the representative of the ‘panth’. Alternatives have started coming up and those alternatives may not be in the ‘panthic’ interests.
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