sukhbir-badal-desperate-for-political-relevance

General Elections have been very tough for the Shiromani Akali Dal-Badal leader Sukhbir Singh Badal.

 

He has once again led his party to a consecutive poor performance winning just one of the 13 parliamentary constituencies in Punjab, getting a vote share of just 13 per cent, even behind his erstwhile alliance partner the BJP which got 18.5 and leading in just 9 of the 117 assembly segments, while the BJP led from 23 assembly segments.

 

To top it all, Sukhbir’s party does not have any political bargaining power at the centre. With just one MP, it hardly could. Added to that is the comfortable majority the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) got on its own without needing any additional members or supporters. 

 

Under these circumstances, the Akali supremo is finding it quite difficult to find his political relevance. He and his party are quite in an unenviable position. They cannot go with the opposition INDIA bloc, which is led by the Congress with the Aam Aadmi Party one of the constituents.

 

The Akalis are apprehensive of aligning with the BJP over the widespread, although unexplained, hostility in the countryside against the saffron party.

 

While Sukhbir Badal chose to avoid greeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi for leading the NDA to a third term or taking oath as the Prime Minister again, he (Sukhbir Badal) individually greeted the regional stalwarts like Udhav Thackeray of the Shiv Sena-(UT), Mamata Banerjee of the All India Trinamool Congress, Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal-United, Chandrababu Naidu of the Telugu Desam Party and Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party.

While Udhav, Akhilesh and Mamata are the important leaders of the INDIA bloc, Nitish and Naidu are with the NDA. 

 

Sukhbir in his congratulatory messages underlined and emphasised the issue of federalism, regional aspiration and autonomy of the states with all these leaders. And actually, all of them have been staunch votaries of financial autonomy and regional aspirations. 

 

Interestingly, Sukhbir forgot to congratulate Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar Abdullah, both of whom are the staunchest votaries of regional/greater autonomy and federalism. That appears to be an inadvertent omission. The two families, otherwise, have a long-standing relationship with each other that goes back to decades.

 

The idea of the ‘Third Front’ constituting the ‘non-BJP’ and the ‘non-Congress’ parties, at least for now, does not seem to have any relevance. Most of the political parties in India have already chosen the side they would like to be. There are very few political parties, which cannot go with either of the two fronts.

 

Even for the Sukhbir-led Akali Dal, there should not be any problem in aligning with the BJP as the two parties do not have any contrarian political interests. Besides, they have been with each other for decades together. It is the failure of the current Akali leadership that it has not been able to counter the propaganda against the BJP. 

 

If the Congress, against which the Sikhs have several grievances like the Operation Bluestar and the anti-Sikh riots in the aftermath of the assassination of former Prime Minister Ms Indira Gandhi at the hands of her Sikh bodyguards, can make a come back in the state, there is nothing as such against the BJP.

 

The BJP in general and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in particular are always seen to be quite supportive of the community. Whether it is the scrapping of the ‘Black List’ under which several NRI Sikhs were barred from visiting India, reopening of the anti-Sikh riot cases, opening up of the Kartapur Corridor or designating the martyrdom day of the younger Sahibzadas as ‘Baal Veer Diwas’ are just a few examples about BJP’s outreach towards the Sikh community that the Akalis represent or, at least, claim to represent. 

 

The only grievance against the Modi government is that it enacted three central agricultural laws, which the farmers opposed. But these were not specific to Punjab as was obvious from the opposition to these laws by the farmers from states like Haryana and Uttar Pradesh also. 

 

There is a radical section, which has always been opposed to the Akali alliance with the BJP. This section exploited the sentiments during the anti-farm law stir. Those leading and spearheading the anti-farm law stir are known ultra-leftists, the archrivals of the BJP. The radicals and the ultra-leftists built up a narrative and subsequent pressure on the Akalis that eventually they decided to part ways with the BJP. 

 

Both the BJP and the Akali leaders have mostly restrained themselves from targeting each other. It will need some deft handling of certain issues like the legal guarantee on the MSP and releasing of those Sikh prisoners who have completed their sentence that can provide some face-saving to the Akalis to align with the BJP.

 

But then if the BJP has to do it or it does both things like providing a legal guarantee for the MSP and the release of the Sikh prisoners, called ‘Bandi Singhs’ why would it share the credit with the Akalis? It would prefer to claim the credit itself. 

 

That again will not be to the liking of the Akalis nor in their political interest, as they will not like the BJP to encroach upon their political space and core constituency.

 

Under these circumstances, Sukhbir Badal appears to have tried his best shot to build bridges with the “possible” third front constituents, which at this stage looks highly improbable, if not impossible. 

 

But at least, it may help Sukhbir to retain some sort of relevance or give him a feeling of being relevant. His greatest challenge right now is to remain relevant within the Akali Dal retain control over the party and also preserve the relevance of the party he is heading right now. 

 

Both are under serious challenge. While Akali Dal as a party is being challenged by the “rebellious blood”, represented by the likes of Amritpal and Sarabjeet, Sukhbir’s leadership also is under challenge from within the party by the likes of Manpreet Ayali and many more.