Chandigarh: The Shiromani Akali Dal’s core committee meeting held on Monday, March 14, to take stock of humiliating defeat in the recent state polls has, expectedly, proved to be another occasion for the party cadre to show their unqualified loyalty to the Badals.
With Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) registering spectacular victory with 92 out of 117 assembly seats, the tally of SAD fell to a mere three. The party lost power in 2017 to Congress, and now to AAP.
Despite the fact that the party faces an existential crisis with consecutive losses, the top body of SAD resolved to “repose faith” in the Badal family – much like the Congress’ unquestioned devotion to the Gandhi family. Just like the Congress Core Committee recently concluded that the Gandhis will remain at the helm of affairs, SAD followed suit.
The defeat this time around for the party has been so humiliating that even the father-son duo, Parkash Singh Badal and Sukhbir Singh Badal, too lost their elections. SAD conceded that it lost its core peasant and Sikh vote to AAP.
In fact, this is the biggest humiliation Punjab’s oldest regional party has ever faced in its 101 years of existence. Akali Dal is the second oldest political party in India after Congress, formed in 1920 to protect the interest of Sikhs.
Behind the decimation of the party is the dwindling political clout of the minority Sikh community, especially in the age of BJP-led Hindu majoritarian politics.
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Giani Hapreet Singh, acting Jathedar of the highest Sikh temporal body, Akal Takht, too echoed similar sentiments in his video message on Sunday, March 13.
Nonetheless, Badals (like Gandhis) walked away unscathed from the SAD core body meeting.
The party resolution read that the party could not run a better campaign than the one planned and executed by party president Sukhbir Badal.
As per the latest data of CSDS-Lokniti, nearly half of Jat Sikhs, who were once core supporters of Akali Dal, voted for AAP against just 26% to SAD.
The voting patterns of Dalit Sikhs, Khatri Sikhs and OBC Sikhs were not different.
Anti-Badal chorus begins
According to a Hindustan Times report, Sukhbir Badal offered to resign during the core committee meeting on Monday, but it was unanimously decided that the entire blame can’t be put on Badals, for the party as a whole is responsible for the defeat.
While many SAD leaders in the private conversations said the core committee’s stand was not surprising, as a leader seeking anonymity said, like the Gandhis of Congress, SAD has been under the firm grip of one family.
Shiromani Akal Dal (SAD) President Sukhbir Singh Badal greets party leaders during a meeting, in Chandigarh. Photo: PTI.
There are a few who chose to speak freely too. For instance, Baldev Singh Chunghan, a member of Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, Akal Takht Jathedar, once considered the parent body of SAD, has opened an anti-Badal front during a media interaction on Monday.
Baldev Singh blamed the “dictatorial leadership style” of Sukhbir Badal for SAD’s downfall.
He alleged that ever since he took over the party as the president, the party abandoned its core ideology.
Citing examples of Gurcharan Singh Tohra, Ranjit Singh Bhramhpura and Sukhdev Dhindsa, he said whosoever dared to speak against Badals were shown the door.
Also read: Punjab Elections: Allegations of ‘Dynasty Politics’ Continue to Dog Badals and SAD
“The party can’t think of revival under the Badal family,” he declared and demanded his resignation.
Jagtar Singh, a senior journalist, too blamed Badals for the party’s poll debacle.
He told The Wire “power centralisation by one family” resulted in the back-to-back poll debacle of SAD.
In the 1970s and 80s, it was believed that there was inner-party democracy in Akali Dal with power-sharing, but now, it is one family that controls the party, he added.
In his analysis, I.P. Singh, senior assistant editor of Times of India, highlighted that the mandate in 1997 assembly polls (in which SAD was in alliance with BJP and the party won 93 out of 117 seats) enabled Badal senior to push the project of complete control of Akali Dal, Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, and by implication, over Akal Takht.
The trend of Akali leaders (including the Badal family) handing over leadership to their kin also started at that time, as earlier leadership would emerge from the cadre, he added.
“It was that time only when, as many believed, SAD turned away from its only Sikh Panth-centric politics to Punjab and Punjabiyat politics in order to become a ‘catch-all party’.”
This paid the party well too as Akali Dal became an effective election-winning machine under the Badals, even repeating the government for two consecutive terms between 2007 and 2017.
Political analyst Pramod Kumar told The Wire that the problem started to creep in when the party faltered on the governance front too.
“Then whatever Sikh Panth base it was left with had too eroded with the sacrilege-related incidents and party’s mishandling of the Sikh protesters in 2015,” he said.
Pramod added the misgovernance of the party during its 2012-2017 rule, which included allegations of corruption, mafia raj and drugs menace, was the last straw.
Pramod said when the time came for SAD’s revival before the 2022 elections, the baggage of three farm bills, breaking off time and tested alliance between SAD and BJP, and then overall discrediting of the leadership of both Congress and Akali Dal pushed the fortunes of the Aam Aadmi Party.
He said traditional parties worked overtime to stir up discussion in the public domain to show that they are a “gang of looters”. This was music to the ears of Kejriwal’s AAP.
He said, “A leader alone is not a determining factor, but an influencing factor in the party’s defeat or win.”
“Overall, the party neither could hold on to its Panth base nor could catch public attention on governance front due to past baggage,” said Pramod
A section of other political thinkers too believe that the Badal family’s business interests too made them unpopular.
Now the moot question is whether SAD’s revival is possible in the present circumstances.
“SAD’s revival is no longer in the hands of Akali Dal,” commented a leader of the party.
“It will depend on how the AAP government functions in Punjab and manoeuvre through Punjab’s faultlines. Only AAP’s unpopularity could give way to SAD’s revival,” he added.