Akalis feel the blues

THE announcement of a new political party by a rebelling section of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) old guard — Ranjit Singh Brahmpura, Sewa Singh Sekhwan and Dr Rattan Singh Ajnala — is bound to shake up the grand old party of Punjab. While the hold of the Badal family on the SAD remains, it is far from firm, given the perception of their weakness in the face of public resentment against them and the opprobrium they have faced in the recent past.

Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Even the belief that there is about to be a vacant space encourages ambition, and this is precisely what is happening. The coming together of the three leaders against the party they belonged to makes them a focal point of dissidence. A disparate set of leaders is hoping to cobble a third front, which remains elusive for now. The talk of launching a ‘parallel party’ that will espouse the ‘original ideology’ of the Akalis underscores how far the party has moved from its original intentions: formed as a task force to carry out the directions of the SGPC, it now dominates the SGPC. It is no longer the moral force it was.

Moral leadership is harder to attain than political. And in religious politics, a combination of both is necessary for credibility. The SAD has faced many a revolt. Certain leaders, including the redoubtable Gurcharan Singh Tohra, had put up a challenge, but all of them faded into the oblivion of political marginalisation. However, this is not to say that every SAD avatar with a suffix will suffer the same fate. The political leadership of the SAD would be ill-advised to dismiss this challenge, which has exposed serious breaches in its armour. The three rebel leaders have provided a platform which may attract others too; indeed, they are actively seeking support from within the SAD and outside. What happens next is a matter of conjecture, but there is little doubt that introspection and corrective action is the need of the hour for SAD leaders in particular, and the party on the whole.