Akali Dal goes the Congress way to maintain leadership status quo after humiliation in Assembly poll

 

Akali Dal Patron Badal Senior saves Sukhbir who continues as party president

 

Ground Zero

Jagtar Singh

 

It seems the outcome of the meeting of the core committee that had been summoned to discuss the worst ever humiliating debacle faced by the Shiromani Akali Dal in the recent Assembly elections was already scripted.

Faqr-e-Qaum Panth Rattaan, 5-time chief minister and party patron Parkash Singh Badal intervened to scuttle discussion and facilitate continuation of his son Sukhbir Singh Badal as the party chief. Both the Badals have lost the election.

This is the second consecutive defeat of the Akali Dal in the Assembly elections under the leadership of the Badals.

“There is no use of discussion. If you want to retain Sukhbir, then praise Sukhbir or tell him to pack up. The proceedings would get leaked in the media,” Badal intervened as Prem Singh Chandumajra was speaking on the need for taking corrective measures. Chandumajra and his son too have been defeated.

The issue was first raised by senior leader Charanjit Singh Atwal followed by Jagmeet Singh Brar who spoke almost in the same tone.

Chandumajra too was taking the same line as Parkash Singh Badal suddenly stopped him.

Chandumajra was stressing the need for introspection arguing otherwise there was no need to call the meeting.

It may be mentioned here that the party had not done any introspection in 2017 or after the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

It is the argument advanced by Badal Senior that is interesting cover up for the party’s humiliation. He recalled the drubbing that the Akali Dal had received in 1989 Lok Sabha election when the candidates from the radical stream supported by the All India Sikh Students Federation including Simranjit Singh Mann had won with a massive margin driving the traditional Akalis to the margin.

Parkash Singh Badal had later captured the Akali domain in 1994 after many ups and downs beginning with the Ajnala and followed by Gidderbaha byelections. He never looked back. He is learnt to have described the present low as the routine while citing the 1989 example.

It was at this stage that one of the leaders proposed that at least a committee should be set up to dissect the defeat. However, Mahesh Inder Singh Grewal blocked this move saying Sukhbir should be authorised to constitute this committee.

Expressing disgust, one of the members proposed that then resolution should be moved praising Sukhbir’s leadership.

The resolution released after the meeting expressed “full faith and pride in the firm and far sighted leadership of the party president Sardar Sukhbir Singh Badal.”

 

 

 

It stated: “The Core Committee is especially proud of  the brave, selfless and tireless manner in which the President led the party from the front in true Panthic traditions during the six-month long  campaign for the just concluded poll for the Punjab Vidhan Sabha”.

The basic issue is whether the party can be revived under the given situation and under the present leadership going by the post 2017 situation.

The party resolution talks of Panthic traditions that were dumped after 1996 systematically.

The functioning of Parkash Singh Badal during his three full terms beginning 1997 in the context of the Panthic traditions is questionable. He  even went to the extent promoting those police officers who were known for worst type of state repression and human rights violations during the radical Sikh struggle. This has to be seen in the context that Badal himself at one stage had supported the radicals.

The Bargari sacrilege and the related narrative has not been forgotten by the people in Punjab going by this worst ever defeat. The role of the Badal family during the farmers agitation too had come under attack. The people of Punjab just refused to trust the Akalis.

The Akali Dal has gone the Congress way.

Both the parties are the oldest in the country.

Both these parties are now family controlled.

Both these parties have been dumped by the people.

The leadership of both these parties has managed to maintain the grip.

There is, however, one major difference between the two.

The Akali Dal used to be an institution of the Sikhs, at least till 1996.

This party controls the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee and the Akal Takht through this route.

The SGPC is elected by the Sikhs in this region under the Sikh Gurdwara Act, 1925. The Sikh institutions already stand damaged.

The defeat in the forthcoming  SGPC polls would have the potential to write Akali Dal’s obit.