sad-faces-toughest-existential-challenge

Shiromani Akali Dal is the second oldest political party in the country after the Congress. It was founded in 1920. Probably for the first time in its over 100 years of glorious history, it is faced with an “existential” challenge as it fights the 2024 General Elections of its own. 

 

It is for the first time in the last several decades, that the party is fighting the elections in the absence of its stalwart leader late Parkash Singh Badal, who led and dominated the party for decades,  passed away last year. The party is, right now, headed by his son, Sukhbir Singh Badal. After about thirty years, the party is fighting the General Elections of its own, without any ally. 

 

During the last thirty years, it has fought elections in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party and before that, in 1998 it had fought these in alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party. It again contested in alliance with the BSP in 2022, after parting ways with the BJP in 2020 over three farm laws and the subsequent farmers’ stir.  

 

Once a dominant political force in Punjab, the party is now struggling for its space to retain just one seat of Bathinda, which has been represented by Harsimrat Kaur Badal, the wife of Sukhbir Singh Badal since 2009. 

 

The party is not just on the margins, but rather out of the margins fighting an existential battle for space. While it had retained its dominant position in Punjab’s politics for a long time, it touched its peak in 2012, when it broke the trend and anti-incumbency by returning to power. Punjab had till then never returned an incumbent government. 

 

It is a strange paradox. The decline of the party started from the moment of its glory. While it did manage to retain the power, it could not counter the anti-incumbency sentiment that was very much underlying on the ground although it did not translate into its defeat that time. 

 

It was during this tenure, that Sukhbir Badal, who was the Deputy Chief Minister started dominating the decision-making in the government as also in the party. His father, Parkash Singh Badal allowed him the free hand. Buoyant and confident after the success, he was described as a master strategist who knew how to win elections. 

 

But winning elections alone is not enough for the survival of a political party. Electoral victory gets you the government but does not necessarily guarantee the strengthening of the party. 

 

The senior Badal had passed the mantle to Sukhbir much before the 2012 assembly elections. With the party already under his control, the absolute authority over the government made Sukhbir the all-powerful man. Even the senior party leaders and ministers, who were his father’s colleagues and almost his age, had to take orders from Sukhbir. The decline and fall of the Shiromani Akali Dal started from there and then only.

 

The Akali stalwarts who had weathered so many storms had faced the militancy and had survived so many tough times, found it difficult to bear with the “indignities” they were made to suffer. The senior Badal had a different and dignified style of functioning. He would accord respect even to his opponents not to speak of his colleagues, whom he respected a lot or at least make them believe so. 

 

And it was not only Sukhbir Badal alone. His brother-in-law, Harsimrat Kaur’s brother Bikram Singh Majithia was in full control of everything. His word had started becoming the law. It was not going unnoticed. The senior Badal once snubbed Majithia, in his jovial characteristic way, publicly telling him that he had got everything on a platter while the Akali leaders, like Ranjit Singh Berhampura, had toiled it hard. The message was not lost on anyone. But it did not go beyond that. Sukhbir and Majithia remained in firm control of the party and the government as did the alienation among the senior leaders which would pronounce itself later. 

 

In the meanwhile, Sukhbir committed two proverbial “cardinal political sins”. First, was that he appointed Sumedh Singh Saini as the Director General of Punjab Police superseding some of his seniors. But more than that was the image of Saini, which was not liked in Panthic circles as he, along with another former DGP KPS Gill is credited with curbing terrorism in Punjab with an iron fist and often accused of severe excesses and rights violations.

 

The second “cardinal sin” was granting pardon to the head of the Dera Sacha  Sauda, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, who was accused of blasphemy. It is believed and rightly so that the then Akal Takhat Jathedar granted pardon to Ram Rahim at the instance of Sukhbir Badal. Ram Rahim has a massive following in the Malwa belt and he, at one point of time, could swing a substantial number of votes in any political party’s favour. 

 

The resentment among the Panthic circles was already brewing up but it was not getting pronounced. Then happened the tragic incident of the sacrilege of holy Guru Granth Sahib. The government, for strange reasons, could not anticipate the situation taking such a violent turn.

 

As the mobs turned violent, police had to resort to firing in which two protestors were killed. It was the proverbial last straw on the camel’s (Akalis’) back. Even now, it has not been conclusively established as to who was behind the tragic incidents of the sacrilege of the holy Guru Granth Sahib, although some Dera Sacha Sauda supporters are being accused of it and are facing trial. 

 

In the meanwhile, the Aam Aadmi Party made its entry into Punjab. It had already established itself successfully in Delhi and it found Punjab very fertile. The AAP made an impressive show in the 2014 General Elections in Punjab winning 4 of the 13 parliamentary seats. In the assembly elections that followed after three years, it was considered to be a favourite, although it ended up winning only 20 of the 117 assembly segments.

In 2019, it fared badly winning just one of the 13 parliamentary seats, Sangrur from where Bhagwant Mann was elected as the lone candidate. 

 

In 2022, the AAP swept the elections winning three-fourths of the seats. While it grabbed the space of both the Akalis and the Congress, it was the Akalis who suffered the most. 

 

Akali Dal, the party, which was once so dominant in Punjab’s politics and wielded a lot of clout at the national level also, has now been reduced to a mere three members in a house of 117. This was because the traditional Akalis, who could never vote for the Congress because of Operation Bluestar, got an option “other” than the Congress, in the AAP.

 

Not much has changed in and for the Akali Dal since then. Several senior leaders have deserted the party. Some of them like Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa and Bibi Jagir Kaur have returned though. But the cadre that eroded and went mostly to the AAP is yet to return. The cadre may not be happy with the AAP anymore, but it still does not seem to be willing to return to the Akali Dal. And that is the greatest challenge for the party to convince their cadres to return home.

 

There have been suggestions also that the party should replace Sukhbir Badal as the president with some non-Badal. But that is easier said than done. Akali Dal, right now, without Sukhbir Badal will be like a headless chicken. 

 

Badals, right now, are to Akali Dal, what Gandhis are believed to be for the Congress; both assets and liabilities at the same time. 

Like Congress is fighting its existential battle at the national level, Akali Dal is fighting a similar battle in Punjab.