Sukhbir Badal to face religious censure: Will Akali Dal chart a new path?

Sukhbir Singh Badal will receive 'punishment' from religious authorities for his acts as chief minister of Punjab. The question is whether a reinvention of Badal and the Akali Dal will follow

On Monday, December 2, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Sukhbir Singh Badal will present himself before five Sikh leaders (Panj Pyare) at the Sri Akal Takht Sahib on orders from Jathedar Giani Raghbir Singh to “accept” punishment from the highest body in the Sikh religion.

  The Akal Takht will decide how he must atone for the charge that decisions and actions taken by him as chief minister of Punjab (2007-17) had harmed the Sikh Panth. He was asked to appear before the Akal Takht on August 30, was declared tankhaiya but was not awarded the punishment (tankhah). He resigned as party president on November 16, appointing senior leader Balwinder Singh Bhundar working president of the party.

  “Let us be clear,” said Naresh Gujral, a senior SAD member and former Rajya Sabha member. “What the Akal Takht orders is religious punishment. It cannot say, for instance, that it is banishing you from politics. The atonement is designed to remind you of humility. So, the Akal Takht could order ‘seva’ of some sort — Badal is more than willing to do that. But after the seva, the SAD will hit the ground running. Watch us then.”

  “In our part of the world,” he added, “people like tyaag (renunciation). By giving up his position Sukhbir has demonstrated the highest level of tyaag.”

  On the face of it, the SAD’s fortunes have been plummeting in recent years. Much of it is being attributed to the leadership of Badal. The party walked out of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in September 2020 in protest against the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) agri-reform moves, breaking an alliance that was put in place in 1996.

  Tentative moves to rebuild relations as recently as February-March this year, ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, failed because no common ground could be found. “We wanted some solution with honour for the farmers, along with assurances that Sikhs in prison on sedition charges who have served jail terms longer than what their alleged crimes would have got them would be released. We wanted the BJP to curb the anti-minority rhetoric of its members; and we wanted meddling in Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) affairs to stop. But all the BJP wanted to negotiate was the number of seats it would contest where we would help them win,” said Gujral, who was part of the talks. No alliance panned out and the BJP improved its vote share in Punjab (because it contested all the 13 Lok Sabha seats on its own for the first time) but could not win one.

  As the SAD, which won just one Lok Sabha seat, acknowledged its defeat, a squabble broke out within the party with dissidents gunning for Badal. The power struggle manifested itself in the SGPC elections for presidency, held in October this year.  SAD candidate Harjinder Singh Dhami was re-elected for a fourth consecutive term, decisively defeating Bibi Jagir Kaur, a former SGPC president, candidate from a rebel SAD faction, and prime Sukhbir Badal baiter.  “The SGPC election shows the party is firmly behind Badal. And even in the next election he will romp home,” said Gujral, pointing out that even the dissidents in the party agreed that running a party like the SAD was not easy. “He is the TINA (there is no alternative) of the SAD.” 

 

Pramod Kumar, who heads the Institute for Development and Communication (IDC) and has extensively researched governance and public policy in Punjab, Haryana, and Uttarakhand, says despite the SAD’s vicissitudes, the party is down but not out in Punjab politics. 

“Take the by-elections held last week. The SAD stayed out of the poll. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the ruling party in the state, won the Gidderbaha, Dera Baba Nanak, and Chabbewal Assembly seats while the Congress won Barnala. The BJP failed to win any seat. Three of its candidates in Dera Baba Nanak, Gidderbaha and Chabbewal lost their security deposits, which means they were not even able to get one sixth of the votes cast. The AAP could have managed its victory only if the SAD had supported it,” Kumar said.

  Gujral concurs. “We were not part of the process. And we did not want the Congress to win. Our workers were given the message and they acted accordingly. How else do you think the AAP could have won these seats?”

  Kumar says the reasons for the SAD’s survival in Punjab are different. “In Punjab today, the only electoral space available is the moderate space. And, in addition, you need the Hindu, the Dalit and the Jat Sikh in your square. With even two of the three you cannot win elections. You need all three.”

  He also says Badal’s “resignation” is tactical. “The Akal Takht will give some ‘saza’ (punishment) on December 2. After that you will see a host of people joining the SAD. Most of them will be from AAP. And the SAD will negotiate an alliance with the BJP within six months.”

  Of course, that presupposes the BJP wants an alliance. Gujral says Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached out when he attended the cremation of SAD doyen Prakash Singh Badal, who died in April 2023. “‘Aage kya karna hai,’ he asked. We had one meeting with (Home Minister) Amit Shah. But after that it was left to Nadda ji (JP Nadda, BJP president),” said Gujral. “We could not make much headway.”

  Kumar says events involving Sikhs in Canada and elsewhere are not an accurate mirror of politics in Punjab. He concedes that panthic politics is a way of life. But extremist rhetoric by any of the groups that constitute Punjab society — Sikhs and Hindu alike — will have little resonance in politics.

  Gujral says a reinvention of Sukhbir Badal and the Akali Dal is to follow. “We will create a new body of policy because no one understands the needs and realities of Punjab like we do. I don’t deny we’ve had setbacks. But we’ll be back.”