Bathinda and Muktsar in Punjab’s Malwa region are strongholds of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), a party with a strong Sikh Panthic vote-bank, which ruled the state for a decade before its disastrous exit in 2017.
It was then convicted in 2015 for cases of sacrilege and police firing in nearby Faridkot. Now, just ahead of the elections, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) has questioned both SAD chief Parkash Singh Badal, 93, and party chief Sukhbir Singh Badal, in a case in which the Congress is under pressure to fulfill its pre-poll promise. is. . Anticipation of further action against Badal, including his arrest, which could be a major game-changer event ahead of the elections, is consolidating the SAD cadre in Malwa behind Badal.
“It is cruel to question a 93-year-old man in poor health in this matter for political gains. It is playing with fire,” says a group of villagers in Badal village of Lambi, a seat in Muktsar that senior Badal has won five times and where is his home. He even defeated Amarinder Singh here in 2017.
“It is a political gimmick and a foolish set of allegations that a chief minister ordered police firing at 4 am. A non-performing government of CM Amarinder Singh is running on a non-programme,” senior SAD leader and Rajya Sabha MP Naresh Gujral told News18.
Akali Dal’s game plan
Gujral also made two important revelations. First, he says party chief Sukhbir Badal will be the party’s chief ministerial face and his latest ally Mayawati has said the same thing. Gujral says that five-time CM Parkash Singh Badal is now 93 years old, his health is weak and he cannot campaign like before. “He will always be our mentor. In Punjab this election will be fought under the leadership of Sukhbir Badal.
Second, Gujral says the party lost badly in 2017 as the BJP “betrayed” the SAD by transferring its votes to the Congress to block the AAP’s chance of coming to power in Punjab. “We had complained to the BJP about this then but their leaders remained silent. BJP deliberately did this to hurt our alliance, only to block AAP. The BJP leaders who are now leaving the party are confirming this.
The SAD says it now has a better alliance with the BSP, which is offering Mayawati to contest 20 of the 117 seats in Punjab. Gujral says that this alliance is one such alliance in which both the parties can enable complete vote transfer. Eight seats have been allotted to the BSP in the Doaba region, which has a Dalit population of over 42%, and where Kanshi Ram was born in Hoshiarpur. “People in Doaba respect him a lot,” says Gujral.
On the field in Malwar
SAD voters in Malwa say breaking ties with the BJP is the party’s best act, especially in view of the farmers’ agitation. Bathinda MP Harsimrat Badal and Ferozepur MP Sukhbir Badal are influencing people how Harsimrat relinquished his cabinet minister’s chair to come out in support of farmers against agricultural laws. But the farmers here do not accept the Akali Dal story and question why the SAD remained with the BJP after the ordinance was first brought in.
Several farmer groups here say that they will not allow SAD cadres to enter their villages for campaigning. However, Gujral says that the recent power crisis in Punjab is reminding people of the “achche days under the SAD regime when there were no power cuts in the state”. News18 visited a dozen places in Malwa and found power cuts everywhere and the industry shut down under a government order, which seems to be a big issue.
Gujral said such issues and the split in the Congress meant that the ruling party would end up a “bad third” in the upcoming elections and the main battle would be between the SAD-BSP alliance and the AAP. Gujral says, “In desperation, they are now trying to make Navjot Singh Sidhu their face, but Amarinder Singh will not let that happen and they will eventually fall.” Local SAD leaders in Muktsar are also taking this line in front of the people, rejecting the challenge of Congress outright.
That said, the people of the Malwa region still reminisce about the problems of the former SAD regime, such as the widespread availability of drugs, unemployment and corruption. “Though Amarinder Singh had promised to end the drug issue and unemployment after coming to power, he could not. The youth are unemployed and in the grip of drugs. The situation is similar to that of the SAD regime,” Kanwarpreet Singh, whose son has been in a de-addiction center, told News18 in Muktsar village.
“The narcotics issue and the issue of sacrilege cases were used in 2017 to defame us and throw us out of power. But in the last five years not a single evidence has come to the fore against our leaders. Now we are also not with BJP and hence one can imagine that if there was even a single proof, no one would have spared us. People are not fools and have seen through it,” Gujral reasons. 2022 is Sukhbir Badal’s biggest test as he is the CM face seeking votes for the first time.
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