The Bharatiya Janata Party is consistently broadening its outreach among the powerful and influential Jatt Sikh community in Punjab. After appointing Kewal Singh Dhillon as Punjab president and Harjit Singh Grewal as chairman of the National Commission for Minorities, the party has elevated another prominent Jatt Sikh leader Manpreet Singh Badal as national vice president, among the second highest positions in the party after the president.
Manpreet is not an ordinary Jatt Sikh leader. He belongs to the Badal family. He is the nephew of veteran Akali leader Parkash Singh Badal and cousin of Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal. He is a five-time MLA and former finance minister of Punjab. He is among the very few well-read politicians in Punjab always seen carrying a book in his hand even while being a minister. He is also fond of Urdu poetry and keeps quoting prominent poets extensively.
The BJP has learnt and realised quite late that in case it wants a firm foothold in Punjab, it will need to have a direct outreach among the Jatt Sikh community. Earlier, when the BJP had an alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal, it had confined itself within the urban Hindu community.
There appeared to be an unwritten understanding between the SAD and the BJP that they will not poach into each other’s “core constituencies”. The then BJP leadership represented by the likes of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishen Advani had a special soft corner for Parkash Singh Badal. They would never overrule him. They had practically left Punjab to the Akalis—the Badals specifically.
Another reason for this understanding was that the Akali-BJP alliance was considered more as a social than a political alliance supposed to represent the Sikhs and Hindus respectively. More so after the dark decade of terrorism in Punjab, the mutual trust between the two communities was considered to be important.
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This, however, is an exaggerated and overrated proposition suggesting as if Sikhs and Hindus were polarised and divided, which was not actually the case.
Biggest example representing the social harmony, that is attributed to the SAD-BJP alliance, was the Congress, which had the support of both the Sikh and the Hindu communities, where leaders and workers were together in complete harmony.
The BJP lost, rather surrendered, a great opportunity by not letting Navjot Singh Sidhu a free hand and free space. Sidhu was a popular cricketer with a powerful gift of gab. His appeal carried among all sections of the society. He was a rising star of Punjab politics. Sidhu, then, for the BJP was like an ace of trumps, which the party chose not to utilize.
What to speak of utilizing his services, the BJP leadership, under the influence of the Badals, clipped Sidhu’s wings. He was not allowed to operate freely in Punjab. The Akalis in general and the Badals in particular saw a challenger in him. Sidhu being a prominent Jatt Sikh face could have helped the BJP to grow and spread across Punjab. Instead, the Akalis engineered his tactful exit.
In 2014, Sidhu was a sitting MP from Amritsar. He was dropped and replaced by Arun Jaiteley. This was done apparently at the suggestion of Parkash Singh Badal. The Badals guaranteed a victory to Jaiteley from Amritsar. In the process they managed to get rid of Sidhu from Amritsar. The BJP offered him the Kurukshetra parliamentary seat, which he declined. As ill luck would have it, Jaitely lost to Capt Amarinder Singh by a massive margin of over one lakh votes despite a pro-Modi BJP wave sweeping across the country.
By then Sidhu was completely disillusioned and alienated from the BJP. He did not even come for Jaiteley’s campaign, despite he (Jaiteley) having been his mentor in cricket and politics. While the Akalis had managed to get rid of Sidhu, the BJP lost an important and popular Jatt Sikh leader. The BJP did later accommodate Sidhu in Rajya Sabha and could have possibly been appointed a minister, but he resigned from the RS and the BJP to join the Congress, while he had negotiated with the AAP also.
Today’s BJP at the national level is not what it was till 2014. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah are not like Vajpayee and Advani. They give precedence to party interest over personal equations. The current BJP leadership appears to be firm in expanding the party’s base in Punjab across all sections of people, including the Jatt Sikhs. What the BJP leadership of the past failed to do, the present one is trying to do by making the right amends.
Manpreet Singh Badal fits best in their scheme of things. Better late than never.
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