Chandigarh: Rebellion in the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) against Sukhbir Badal’s leadership is set to intensify with his detractors planning to elect a new leader “who can do politics with a sense of religiosity”.
Led by former MP Prem Singh Chandumajra and ex-SGPC chief Bibi Jagir Kaur plan, the rebels plan to appear before the Akal Takht, the highest seat of temporal authority for the Sikhs, and tender an apology for all the mistakes of the party before electing a new leader to replace SAD president Sukhbir Badal.
Chandumajra told The Print Wednesday that the SAD leaders who want a change in the leadership would appear before the Akal Takth on 1 July before electing a new leader who can “do politics with a sense of religiosity.”
On Tuesday, Chandumajra and Kaur along with other senior leaders such as Sikander Singh Maluka, Parminder Singh Dhindsa and Sarwan Singh Phillaur had met at Jalandhar and passed a resolution demanding that Badal should step down following the Akali Dal’s debacle in the general elections.
The SAD won Bathinda only where Sukhbir Badal’s wife Harsimrat Kaur Badal was the candidate out of the 13 parliamentary seats it contested.
The faction placing its trust on Badal has said that the “frustrated elements sponsored by the BJP” were trying to “weaken” the party.
Asked what mistakes they were talking about, Chandumajra said that the people of Punjab were angry with the party over pardon to Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and incidents of sacrilege during the SAD rule.
“We will tender a collective apology to the Akal Takht for the pardon given to Ram Rahim during the SAD rule, and for the then government’s failure to punish those responsible for the incidents of sacrilege,” he explained.
Chandumajra said once the leaders running the Akali Dal Bachao Lehar movement gets an apology from the Akal Takht Sahib, a committee of Sikh intelligentsia would be constituted in consultation with the religious leaders to select a new leader to succeed Badal.
“We want the new leader to be one who can lead a political movement with a sense of religiosity because SAD is a Panthic party,” the former Anandpur Sahib MP said.
Similarly, Bibi Jagir Kaur asserted that none of the leaders who assembled at Jalandhar had any issue with Badal, but it was the people’s voice that a change was needed in the SAD’s leadership for its revival.
“It has been 15 years since he (Badal) led the party. This is enough time for any leader to be at the helm of any political party. Many political parties keep changing their party presidents. Badal should also listen to the voice of people and step down on his own,” said Kaur.
She said that she has no qualms about admitting that during the SAD rule in the past, “morality was murdered” (maryada da katal hoya hai), referring to the incidents of sacrilege and the inability of the then government to punish the guilty as well as pardon to Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh.
“No one has any personal issues with Sukhbir Badal. But it is a fact that the people of Punjab have not pardoned the SAD for the sins it committed while in power. Sukhbir Badal should listen to people’s voices and step down on his own so that they (the rebels) don’t have to resort to his removal,” she asserted.
While the SAD was in power in Punjab from 2007 to 2017, the issues that negatively impacted the party primarily occurred during the second term, when Parkash Singh Badal was the chief minister, but the real power lay with his son and deputy, Sukhbir Badal.
In 2015, a series of sacrilege incidents involving the desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib deeply hurt the sentiments of Sikhs and led to widespread protests and unrest.
The SAD-led government faced criticism for its handling of the situation, as many among the people miffed with the administration for not taking swift or adequate action to investigate and prevent further sacrilege incidents.
The police response to the protests, particularly the 2015 firing in Behbal Kalan, where two Sikhs were killed, further escalated the situation. The use of force against peaceful demonstrators caused outrage and eroded trust in the government.
In 2015, the Akal Takht pardoned Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in a case of blasphemy for impersonating Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru, at a gathering in 2007.
A large section of the people felt that the SAD swayed the Akal Takht to pardon the Dera chief, possibly for gaining support of his followers at the cost of compromising the Sikh religious authority.
The backlash was so intense that the Akal Takht eventually revoked the pardon. However, the initial decision had already caused significant damage to the SAD’s standing among Sikhs.
The perception that the party failed to protect Sikh religious sentiments and manipulated religious decisions for political purposes contributed to the growing disillusionment with the SAD in Punjab.
In 2017, the SAD suffered a severe defeat, winning only 15 out of the 94 assembly seats it contested. Its ally, the BJP, won 3 out of the 23 seats it contested. The situation worsened in 2022, with the SAD winning just 3 seats, and its partner, the BSP, securing 1 seat.
In the 2019 parliamentary polls, the SAD won only 2 seats, Bathinda and Firozpur, out of the 10 it contested, while its ally, BJP, won Hoshiarpur and Gurdaspur out of the 3 seats allocated to it.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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