SAD on slippery ground in Gurdaspur

Son’s arrest puts Langah’s political career in jeopardy

BOX: Marginalised, then sacked

The Akalis started losing ground after the 2012 Assembly poll due to an assortment of reasons. The first and foremost was Langah’s marginalisation. He lost the 2012 and 2017 polls to Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa. In the run-up to the 2017 Gurdaspur Parliament bypoll, a sleaze video featuring him and a woman surfaced. Subsequently, he was booked in a rape case and was later fired by the SAD.

Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Gurdaspur, May 6

Former SAD Cabinet Minister Sucha Singh Langah has been rendered ‘hors de combat’ in Gurdaspur’s political battlefield following the Akal Takht’s reluctance to grant him a reprieve.

This setback, coupled with an incident in which his son, Parkash Singh, was booked by the police in an NDPS offence, means its virtually curtains for old warhorse Langah, who, at one time, was one of the most influential Akali leaders.

There was a time when Langah was all-powerful. He would deliberately keep bureaucrats and police officers waiting for him at his Dhariwal residence. Their self respect hurt, they still kept waiting. Langah’s waywardness and the revolt of veteran leader Sewa Singh Sekhwan has dealt a crippling blow to the SAD in the area. The prolonged illness of former Speaker and yet another heavyweight Nirmal Singh Kahlon, too, is not helping things. It is another matter that his son Ravi Karan Kahlon is fighting hard to keep the family flag flying high in their home bastion of Fatehgarh Churian.

Batala sitting SAD MLA Lakhbir Singh Lodhinangal has had his wings clipped after the Congress swept the municipal corporation polls last month. There are murmurs that he may jump ship ahead of the Assembly polls. Only Gurdaspur SAD president Gurbachan Singh Babbehali is putting up a semblance of a fight.

The Akalis started losing ground after the 2012 Assembly poll due to an assortment of reasons. The first and foremost was Langah’s marginalisation. He lost the 2012 and 2017 polls to Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa. In the run-up to the 2017 Gurdaspur Parliament bypoll, a sleaze video featuring him and a woman surfaced. Subsequently, he was booked in a rape case and was later fired by the SAD. Simultaneously, the Akal Takht excommunicated him. He was a sitting SGPC member when the video emerged.

Langah, for the past several months, had been cosying up to a section of the Sikh clergy apparently to influence the Akal Takht to grant him a reprieve which would have paved his way for a political comeback.

Observers say with the clergy in no mood to relent and with his son being arrested for a crime as heinous as heroin possession, things are back to square one for Langah in particular and the Akalis in general.