Skip to main content

Akali Dal now enters secular alliance with BSP after break-up with BJP

 


Shiromani Akali Dal course corrects, joins hands with Bahujan Samaj Party for 2022 polls

Ground Zero

 

Jagtar Singh

 

Having ended its almost quarter of a century old alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party under pressure from the farmers struggle, the Shiromani Akali Dal today joined hands with the Bahujan Samaj Party to pose a formidable challenge to the ruling Congress in the February 2022 Assembly election.

The BSP that has not won a single Assembly seat in the last several elections, would contest from 20 seats with 97 seats in the quota of the Akali Dal. Under the arrangement with the BJP since 1997, the  quota of junior partner was 23 seats.

It is pertinent to recall here that the Akali Dal and the BSP had entered into alliance way back in the 1996 Lok Sabha election in which the Akali Dal won eight and BSP three seats out of 13 with two having been retained by the Congress. Punjab was still coming out of the hang over of long period of militancy at that time.

Earlier in 1989, the BSP had won Phillaur with the support of the Sikh radical organisations in which the Shiromani Akali Dal had been completely marginalised.

The Akali Dal at one time used to be a Panthic party and Panth symbolises classless and casteless social structure with liberal humanistic functioning. This approach has never been forcefully manifested as during COVID when this dimension of Sikh service has made its impact globally. This dimension is diametrically opposit to the approach of Sangh Parivar that practices divisive politics and the BJP is its political front. The Akali Dal all along was in the wrong company. It is a different matter that party’s patron Parkash Singh Badal used to define the power-sharing Akali Dal-BJP relationship as that of nail and flesh.

It would not be out of context to revisit the election rally in Hoshiarpur by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019 Lok Sabha election that was also addressed by Badal Senior. At the end of his speech, he had raised the ‘Modi, Modi, Modi…’ slogan like a BJP worker. The political class treats the human memory to be too short but it is not.

History just can’t be overlooked.

Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal announced the new arrangement in the presence of BJP leaders at a news conference that ended up as a one way affair as he said he would not entertain questions today.

Interestingly, he did not refer to the BJP.


The impact of this alliance has to be seen in the broader context of the 2022 contest  that would mainly be 3-cornered with some fringe elements too in the fray.

The BJP that had been trying to add fourth dimension stands completely blocked by the farmers. The party at one time was looking for an effective Sikh face. That is not the situation any more.

At the same time, it should not be overlooked that in the 2017 Assembly elections, BJP chief Amit Shah and Punjab Congress chief Capt Amarinder Singh had entered into tacit understanding to block the Aam Aadmi Party that was perceived to be very strong.


BJP is a pan-Punjab party although  with support base mainly in urban areas. Both the Congress as well as the BJP share the Hindu support base.

AAP is not in a better position as compared to 2017.

The ruling Congress has landed in self-made crisis with a major section questioning the functioning of Capt Amarinder Singh when there is virtually no time to make amends. The Congress rank and file has never been happy with the own government.

Punjab represents a new model that can be called Distance Governance. This model has been characterised by bureaucratic domination. Even many of the political offices were filled with retired bureaucrats adding to resentment.

The dormant volcano turned active a few weeks earlier and the so-called high command is in damage control mode. The Congress, that had no threat from outside, has become its own enemy.

The Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal now share a trait- both these parties are family controlled.

Punjab political domain is characterised by three dimensions – religio-political dynamics, electoral dynamics and electoral arithmetic.

This new formation seems to be based mainly on electoral arithmetic.

Unlike the alliance with the BJP, this arrangement is unlikely to impact state’s religio-political dynamics.

The welcoming of this alliance by Sardar Parkash Singh Badal has to be viewed in this backdrop. He hailed it as “the beginning of a secular, federal democratic revolution in the state and the country for a total socio-economic and political  revamp of our  polity. The process of justice and equality for the poor, the down trodden and the minorities will also get a boost with this development. ”

Going by this reaction of it being a secular alliance, was alliance with BJP that lasted 24 years communal?

This admission is too late.

Lastly, the electoral dynamics is likely to be dictated by the farmers struggle and issue of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib followed by the rest like non-governance. Corruption has ceased to be an issue in Punjab. The new arrangement has to be assessed in this framework.

 

 

 

 

 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Sinister and deep design to divide Sikhs and Hindus in Canada needs to be exposed

  Sinister and deep design to divide Sikhs and Hindus in Canada needs to be exposed Ground Zero Jagtar Singh Chandigarh: Let us decode deeper design in what apparently seems to be deliberate distortion of facts in case of the so-called Sikh-Hindu clash in Canada to project it as confrontation between the two communities. The Indian media and the establishment gave it out as a communal conflict and attack on a Mandir, the Hindu place of worship. Let us first put the matter straight from the evidence available in the form of videos relating to every dimension of this narrative and the statements. It was neither a Sikh-Hindu clash nor an attack on the Hindu temple per se. It was a protest by the SFJ activists against the Indian consulate organizing a camp there. Such protests have been held against the consulate outside the gurdwaras too as per the record. The saner statement issued by the Hindu Federation of November 4 is very important in the interpretation of this narra...

History seems to be ominously repeating itself to drive Punjab into religio-political minefield again

  History ominously repeating itself to drive Punjab into religio-political minefield again Ground Zero Jagtar Singh This headline is not rooted in some sort of pessimism. The signals are loud and clear. The onus to counter such signals is on the Punjab government. History in Punjab seems to be repeating itself to push Punjab into yet another cycle of what can be termed as the avoidable toxic situation. That cycle has now impacted even geo-political relations of India with some countries, especially Canada where the Sikhs are settled in sizeable numbers. In the context of the Sikhs as a globalized people, it is pertinent to mention that even in United Kingdom House of Commons, the representation of the Sikhs is now in double digit after the recent elections. Punjab is still impacted by the tremors of religio-political   dynamics that got triggered in 1978 with the Sikh-Nirankari clash on the Baisakhi on April 13 at Amritsar, the religious capital of the Sikhs. ...

Two binaries emerging in Punjab’s multi-polar polls where last 72 hours are always crucial

  Two binaries emerging in Punjab’s multi-polar polls where last 72 hours are always crucial   Ground Zero Jagtar Singh Chandigarh, May 28: The inter-play of socio-political forces in Punjab in the run up to the June 1 Lok Sabha elections is unprecedented. This is besides that established fact that the religio-political dynamics of this state has always been different from the rest of India, even when the boundaries of this country touched the Khyber Pass connecting with Afghanistan. It is for the first time that so many main political players are in the fray independently thereby making the contest multi-polar. Then there are two other eruptions in the electoral matrix making the multi-polar contest all the more interesting, and also important for future dynamics of not only Punjab but also India as the roots of this phenomena are not in too distant a past but in not so recent period of militancy. It is after decades that Punjab is going to the polls without a...