Chandigarh: The crisis in the Shiromani Akali Dal – once a strong political force in Punjab and the face of its majority Sikh community – has deepened after a group of dissident Akali leaders approached the Akal Takht Sahib (the temporal Sikh body) on Monday (July 1) to seek atonement for four major ‘mistakes’ that they believed led to the party’s political downfall.
In their letter submitted to the Akal Takht’s jathedar, Giani Raghbir Singh, the rebels prominently said that these mistakes occurred between 2007 and 2017 during Akali rule in Punjab and largely blamed them on decisions by the party’s leadership at the time, and especially by party president Sukhbir Singh Badal, who was then deputy chief minister as well as home minister.
“This resulted in the party’s alienation from the Sikh panth as well as from a large section of the people,” the rebels claimed.
It is pertinent to mention that the Akali Dal has been losing one election after another since its defeat in the assembly polls in 2017.
Another election rout in the recent Lok Sabha polls – in which ten of the Akali Dal’s 13 candidates lost their security deposits and its vote share reduced to its lowest ever, at 13% – has now triggered a major rift in the party.
A group of rebels under senior leaders like Prem Singh Chandumajra, Surjit Rakhra, Parminder Dhindsa, Bibi Jagir Kaur and Gurpartap Singh Wadala are calling to oust Badal as party president and are vowing to revive the party afresh.
Seeking atonement before the Akal Takht Sahib was the first step before launching the Akali Dal Bachao Andolan, rebels informed the media last week.
On the contrary, the Badal-led faction too has stepped up its guard, claiming that the majority of party leaders were satisfied with his leadership and that those rebelling against him were doing so at the instance of the BJP in order to weaken the party.
The BJP was the Akali Dal’s junior alliance partner for decades before the latter pulled out of the alliance after the farmers’ movement in 2020.
Since then, the BJP has been trying to expand its footprint in Punjab. In the recent Lok Sabha polls, the party did not win any seats, but its vote share was far better than that of the Akalis.
Four ‘mistakes’
The exoneration of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim in an old case involving his alleged blasphemous bid to impersonate the tenth Sikh guru, Guru Gobind Singh, is one the top of four ‘mistakes’ that these rebels mentioned in their joint letter to the Akal Takht Sahib.
In 2007, at Salabatpura in Punjab’s Bathinda district, the Dera chief, who currently is serving a 20 year jail term in a rape case, mimicked the tenth guru by dressing similarly to him and performing a ceremony.
This led to a police case against him and in response to this incident, the Akal Takht too excommunicated him, asking the Sikh sangat to socially and politically boycott him.
But according to the rebels, the then-Akali government withdrew the case against the Dera chief.
Second, Badal used his influence to get the Dera chief pardoned of his blasphemous act from the Akal Takht.
Rs 90 lakh was spent on advertisements to defend the decision, but due to strong opposition from the Sikh panth, the Akali Dal’s leadership ultimately had to reverse the decision, the rebels stated.
Another major issue the rebels raised was the party’s mishandling of the 2015 sacrilege cases.
On June 1, 2015, a copy of the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy book that the Sikhs worship as the living guru, went missing from a gurdwara in the Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village in Punjab’s Faridkot district.
Months later, in October, copies of the Guru Granth Sahib were found desecrated in multiple places, including Bargari in Faridkot, triggering a massive protest by Sikhs across the state.
The issue escalated after the police retaliated against Sikh protesters at two places in Faridkot on October 14, 2015 – first in Kotkapura town, where many were injured due to caning and water cannoning by the police, and then in Behbal Kalan village, where two Sikh protesters were killed in police firing.
According to rebels, then-home minister Badal was neither able to conduct a timely and proper investigation, nor could he successfully punish the culprits involved in these incidents.
Lastly, the rebels also pointed out that the Akali Dal government made another major mistake by appointing as Punjab police chief an officer who was notorious for fake police encounters resulting in the martyrdom of Sikh youths.
They also stated that the Akali regime during that time failed to conduct an impartial investigation into fake police encounters and provide relief to the victims despite promises made to the people.
Summing up, the rebels stated in the letter that they were part of the Akali leadership during the occurrence of these events and they accepted that they failed to prevent the wrongdoings of the leadership.
However, they claimed that they repeatedly raised these issues within the party. The senior leadership of the party was repeatedly urged to present themselves before Akal Takht Sahib to repent for these mistakes according to the Sikh ethos, but they did not agree, the letter added.
Other reasons equally pressing
Harjeshwar Singh, a political commentator in Chandigarh, told The Wire that the four issues the Akali rebels highlighted may have dented the Akali Dal, but that there are other pressing issues responsible for the party’s ultimate political downfall.
According to him, if one studies the party’s performance after the occurrence of sacrilege or Dera events, its vote share was still stable at between 25% and 27% during the 2017 assembly polls and the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. That time, the party was also not fighting in all seats since it was in alliance with the BJP.
According to him, the party’s initial stand on the Modi regime’s controversial farm laws was something that made it lose more ground in Punjab.
The party’s damage control after the beginning of the historic farm protest was too little and too late, he said, adding that afterwards, the rise of the Aam Aadmi Party in the 2022 assembly polls made the Akalis further unpopular as reflected in a dip in their vote share to 18%.
“With the party failing to reinvent itself after a string of electoral losses, the 2024 Lok Sabha poll outcome came as a further shock,” said Harjeshwar.
According to him, the latest rift in the Akali Dal was another sign of worry for the party. Rather than working for the party’s revival, their leaders are fighting among themselves now, thereby weakening the party further.
“While valid questions are definitely being raised on Sukhbir Badal’s leadership, the rebel leaders were equally complacent during [the time of the] wrongdoings in the party. They are now trying to take high moral ground, which can’t be justified now,” he added.
