Even as a faction of rebels seeks Sukhbir Badal’s ouster and vows to launch a movement to revive the party, friends and foes alike agree on the importance of a robust Akali Dal in Punjab’s politics.
About three-and-a-half years after it celebrated its centenary, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), the country’s second-oldest political party after the Congress, is in the throes of an existential crisis. A section of its leaders is openly voicing what has long been whispered: President Sukhbir Singh Badal must relinquish his post to save the party. This demand surfaced days after the party secured just one of the 13 Lok Sabha seats, with 10 of its candidates losing their deposits, and two Independents winning on the Panthic agenda, once associated with the Akalis. Adding insult to injury, the BJP, its former junior alliance partner of over two decades, garnered a higher vote share. The fortunes of SAD, which ruled Punjab for two consecutive terms starting in 2007 — unprecedented in a state where it used to alternate power with the Congress — plummeted in the 2017 assembly elections when it won fewer seats than the newcomer Aam Aadmi Party and hit rock bottom in 2022 when it secured only three assembly seats.
Many blame the party’s misfortunes on its descent into family politics, the rise of the drug menace under its watch, and its mishandling of the sacrilege incidents in 2015. Active in electoral politics since 1937, the SAD was known as a cadre-driven party often run by “jathedars” who took pride in standing up for various causes. In the countryside, the Akalis, often identified by their blue turbans, were known for their morchas (agitations). When the late Parkash Singh Badal, who took over as party president in 1996, anointed his son Sukhbir as president in 2008, it was the first time in the party’s history that an incumbent president had elevated a family member to the post. Afterwards, many of his immediate family members joined the state cabinet while Sukhbir became the deputy chief minister.
Even as a faction of rebels seeks Sukhbir Badal’s ouster and vows to launch a movement to revive the party, friends and foes alike agree on the importance of a robust Akali Dal in Punjab’s politics. The party has been a moderating force in a state where religion often mixes with politics. The vacuum left by its decline is now being filled with hardliners like Amritpal Singh, who won the Khadoor Sahib seat despite being in jail under the National Security Act. As the state anticipates by-polls following the victory of four MLAs in the Lok Sabha polls, there are indications that more radicals might enter the fray. Against this background, the Akalis must return to their roots and regain lost ground — with or without a Badal at the helm.
