Badals pushed on the back foot as ‘taksali’ leaders voice dissent
CHANDIGARH: Akali patriarch Parkash Singh Badal and his son Sukhbir Singh Badal, who have been at the helm of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) for the past two decades, are facing their worstever crisis with senior party leaders voicing their dissent.
The rumblings of discontent, which had started while the SAD was in the government for ten years, are not just out in the open. A more worrying aspect is also that taksali Akalis (old guard), who have been feeling ignored, are at the forefront. The blame for the gap between the taksalis and the party leadership is being put on Sukhbir.
The party president, according to the old guard, was taking all decisions unilaterally which alienated a section of the party leaders and led to cracks in its core Panthic constituency. “The party pushed away its Panthic vote bank that had stood by it through thick and thin by projecting itself as a ‘Punjabi party’. And, this lead to our downfall,” said a leader, seeking anonymity. The party was pushed to the number ‘three position’ in the 2017 assembly polls, as it could only win 15 of the 117 seats.
Though the first signs of trouble were visible when several taksali leaders expressed discontent over the working of the party after the Ranjit Singh panel report, which looked into sacrilege cases and the subsequent police action, brought the two Badals under spotlight, senior leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa’s resignation from all party posts on Saturday came as a jolt.
A long-time confidant of Badal, Dhindsa, who cited declining health as the reason, had been feeling sidelined. His discomfort was evident when he was not considered for a berth in the Narendra Modi cabinet in 2014 and Bathinda MP and Sukhbir’s wife Harsimrat Badal was given preference. Dhindsa was fertilizer minister in the Vajpayee government.
Before the Badals could persuade Dhindsa, three Majha leaders, Lok Sabha MP Ranjit Singh Brahmpura, former MP Rattan Singh Ajnala and ex-minister Sewa Singh Sekhwan, spoke out against the working in the party, calling it a “sad state of affairs”.
DERA, SACRILEGE ADDED TO WOES
At the centre of the growing dissent within the party is the pardon granted to Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh by the Akal Takht, the temporal seat of Sikhs in 2015, and the subsequent withdrawal a month later due to its adverse fallout. The pardon, seen as a step in haste, had hit the party hard. Also, Sukhbir, whose organisational skills were praised after the 2007 and 2012 victories, had faced flak after a series of incidents of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib took place in 2105 and two Sikh youths died in police firing on protesters in Behbal Kalan. He was the deputy chief minister then. The Panthic organisations had blamed the father-son duo but they never tried to mend fences with them.
GENERATION SHIFT LEFT VETERANS BY WAYSIDE
Though Sukhbir had taken over the reins of the party in 2008, the Akali-BJP alliance government from 2007 to 2017 saw a power shift from Badal to him. A year later, he became the deputy chief minister and virtually ran the government.
The shift did not go down well with ‘taksali Akalis’ who are contemporaries of Badal, but they could not do much as Sukhbir had all the levers of power in his hands. Behind the Majha leaders’ statement is also the emergence of former Bikram Singh Majithia, brother-in-law of Sukhbir Badal, as a centre of power in the region. He has been calling the shots in the region which has left the dyed-in-the-wool Akalis sulking.
BADAL’S CRISIS-MANAGEMENT SKILL ON TEST
Dhindsa’s resignation and the Majha trio’s statement forced Badal to step in. He spoke to Brahmpura and other senior leaders, asking them to be present in the October 7 rally in Patiala, the home turf of Punjab CM Capt. Amarinder Singh. Post2017 state polls, the former CM was lying low, leaving the decision-making to Sukhbir and Majithia.
A lot will now depend on his crisis-management skills because placating the disgruntled leaders and keeping the party’s core Panthic support base intact is easier said than done. However, Rajya Sabha MP Naresh Gujral said there was no challenge to the leadership of Sukhbir, calling the ongoing crisis a “temporary phenomenon”. He said that Badal still has the final word because he has been in the party for 60 years.
“The leaders voicing concern want to be heard. Badal Saab will counsel Sukhbir also, and things will be normal soon,” he said.