Parkash Singh Badal: Colossus of Punjab politics

Tribune News Service

Vikramdeep Johal

Chandigarh, April 25

The death of five-time Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal marks the end of a long and eventful chapter in Punjab politics. For decades, his name was synonymous with his party, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), which was established just seven years before Badal’s birth. He played a huge role in making the SAD a formidable political force which catered to Punjab’s Sikh community and the peasantry. Religion has been inseparable from politics for the Akalis right from the outset, and the tradition continued during Badal’s innings at the helm of affairs.

Badal had the distinction of becoming the state’s youngest CM when he took charge for the first time in his early forties in March 1970, though his stint lasted just over a year. He had a longer term of almost three years after the SAD won the first post-Emergency elections in Punjab. During the turbulent years of militancy, he stood up for the rights of Sikhs as well as Punjab and protested against the excesses of the Congress government at the Centre. After boycotting the 1992 Assembly elections, Badal led the SAD to a remarkable comeback victory in 1997, in alliance with an unlikely ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party. Badal’s close ties with BJP stalwart Atal Bihari Vajpayee strengthened the alliance and gave Punjab a much-needed stable government after the upheaval caused by militancy. The beleaguered state finally returned to the path of progress and development.

The indefatigable Badal, whose tall stature as a statesman was acknowledged even by leaders of rival parties, then went on to serve two terms as CM in a row (2007-17), a rarity in Punjab’s anti-incumbency-dominated electoral politics. His last term, however, will be remembered mainly for the wrong reasons: a series of sacrilege incidents, the Behbal Kalan police firing and the Akal Takht flip-flop on pardon to Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim. During his final years, Badal helplessly watched his party suffer back-to-back routs in the 2017 and 2022 Assembly elections. The SAD became a shadow of its former self as many members of the old guard parted ways over differences with the new party president, the patriarch’s son Sukhbir Singh Badal. With the senior Badal’s death, the century-old party finds itself at a crossroads. It will be an onerous task for Sukhbir to reverse the SAD’s fortunes and make it regain the heights achieved under his father’s dynamic leadership.

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