Chandigarh: Five-time Punjab Chief Minister and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) patron Parkash Singh Badal passed away at a private hospital in Mohali on Tuesday evening. He was 95 years old.
Badal was admitted to the hospital on April 16 after complaining of breathlessness. He was admitted to the hospital in February and June last year with similar complaints.
With the death of Badal, an era of more than 70 years of Punjab politics has come to an end.
During his lifetime, Badal was not only a witness, but an active participant in the most important events in the history of post-partition Punjab, including the Punjabi Suba movement of the 1950s, the Indo-Pakistani War (1965, 1971), the reorganization Number of States (1966), Green Revolution, Naxalite Movement, Dharma Yudh Morcha (1982), Operation Blue Star (1984), Operation Black Thunder (1986) and two dark decades of militancy in the 1980s and 1990s
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most cunning politician of punjab
A Dhillon Jat Sikh who belonged to an agricultural family, Badal was born in Muktsar in Faridkot district, which became his strongest political stronghold.
Badal dominated the Shiromani Akali Dal, the country’s second oldest party, formed in 1920 from the Gurudwara reform movement. Though the party was led by stalwarts like Harchand Singh Longowal, Gurcharan Singh Tohra, Jagdev Singh Talwandi and Surjit Singh Barnala over the years, Badal dominated the party running it for nearly three decades.
Although a powerful orator on stage, Badal’s personal interactions with people alone were free from any arrogance or arrogance. But his mastery of understanding people and his ability to subtly demolish his political opponents made him one of the shrewdest politicians in Punjab.
His influence on Sikh and Gurdwara politics through the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) was immense. Ever since Badal passed the reins of the SAD in 1996, the party’s control over the SGPC and consequently over Sikh affairs remained unquestioned.
Badal’s permanent solution to the threat of a Hindu-Sikh split in Punjab was to merge his Sikh party with the Bharatiya Janata Party (formerly Jana Sangh/Janata Party). The alliance lasted for more than four decades, ending in 2021 on the issue of three central farm laws opposed by the farmers of Punjab.
A never-ending champion of agricultural subsidies and free electricity to farmers, and for the Jat Sikh peasantry, the main vote bank of the Akali Dal, Badal was not only the protector of their religion, but also of their land and crops.
At the national level, Badal played his part with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and remained a Union minister in the Morarji Desai-led Janata Party government in 1977 and the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1996. He was a staunch voter. Fought for increased power to the states and a stronger federal structure at the Center on almost all platforms.
his political journey
After graduating from Forman Christian College, Lahore, Badal’s political career began as a sarpanch in 1947, when he was just 20 years old. He won his first assembly election from Malot in 1957 when the Akali Dal joined hands with the Congress as part of the regional formula exercise.
Sant Fateh Singh, who wrested the Shiromani Akali Dal from Master Tara Singh, managed to break the political dominance of the Congress in Punjab in 1967, when Gurnam Singh became the first non-Congress chief minister of Punjab, paving the way for Badal , who however were defeated. Elections in 1967, won the Gidderbaha seat during the 1969 mid-term elections.
In March 1970, 43-year-old Badal became chief minister for the first time in the Akali Dal (Sant Fateh Singh)-Jan Sangh alliance. His tenure lasted a little over a year till June 1971. In 1972, when the Congress returned to power in Punjab under the leadership of Jail Singh, Badal, by now a third-time MLA, became the Leader of the Opposition.
In 1975, he was among the prominent leaders who led the opposition during the imposition of Emergency against former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. He launched the “Save Democracy Front” and was arrested and sent to jail.
Badal became the Chief Minister of Punjab for the second time in 1977, leading the Akali Dal-Janata Party coalition, but his government could not last for a full five-year term.
In 1980, the Punjab state assembly under Badal was dissolved along with 12 other states following the return of Indira Gandhi. In the assembly elections that followed, the Congress came to power under the leadership of Darbara Singh and Badal became the leader of the opposition.
moderate pacifist
During the rise of ‘terrorist’ Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, Badal was part of the Shiromani Akali Dal “Victory” which included Longowal and Tohra.
While Tohra was seen openly supporting Bhindranwale, Badal and Longowal maintained a moderate stance. However, unlike Longowal, who was involved in the day-to-day activities at the Golden Temple prior to Operation Blue Star in June 1984 (when the army stormed the temple to flush out the militants), Badal remained aloof and unattached.
While both Longowal and Tohra were in the Golden Temple complex during Operation Blue Star, Badal was in his village.
He remained a moderate Akali till his last days, whose politics was mostly based on religion, but he never supported any form of extremism. Maintaining peace and harmony in Punjab was his top agenda.
In 1985, a year after Surjit Singh Barnala became chief minister of the first non-coalition independent Akali Dal government in Punjab, Badal split from the Akali Dal to form the SAD (Badal). of Barnala ministry in the minority forces him to take Congress’s Help.
Panth to Punjabit and Populism
Badal became the Chief Minister of Punjab for the third time in 1997. His was the first non-Congress government in Punjab that completed a full term, providing much-needed political stability to a state that had just emerged from the grip of militancy. ,
After paying a heavy price for the heady mix of religion and politics, the 1996 Moga Declaration marked a major shift in Badal politics – Punjabiyat no more creed became the key.
Badal changed the demographics of the Akali Dal to include people from all religions. The result was a landslide victory for the SAD-BJP in the 1997 elections, winning 75 of the 117 assembly seats. Badal won from two seats – Kila Raipur and Lambi.
In 2002, the Congress defeated the SAD-BJP alliance and Captain Amarinder Singh became the Chief Minister of Punjab and Badal became the Leader of the Opposition for the third time.
Badal returned to power in 2007 and 2012, leading a party to two consecutive terms in power for the first time in Punjab’s history.
In 2012, he became the only person in Punjab politics to have become the youngest Chief Minister of Punjab at the age of 43 in 1970 and the oldest Chief Minister of Punjab at the age of 84.
By 2007, populism had become the hallmark of the SAD and Badal stormed back to power riding on the hugely popular “Aata Dal” and “Shagun” schemes announced for the poor.
Badal’s foreign-educated MP son Sukhbir, who was apparently being groomed as a successor, was made party chief in 2008 and ahead of the 2012 assembly elections, he ensured that economy and development were the party’s main focus. Be the driving force.
biggest blow
just when While the Akali Dal had kept Sikh panthic politics firmly in the background, events after 2015 made it clear that the panth had not forgotten the party’s history.
The biggest blow to the Akali Dal was when the incidents of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib started. (considered a living Guru by the Sikhs) happened During Badal’s tenure as Chief Minister.
Badal did nothing to bring the culprits to justice and Sukhbir was seen mingling with Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim – arch enemy of Sikhs To vote.
The cult never forgave Badal and the party lost badly in 2017 and 2022. Badal managed to retain his home seat of Lambi in 2017, but lost it to the Aam Aadmi Party in 2022, when at 94 he was the oldest candidate in the fray. Badal had tasted election defeat For the first time since 1969.
Badal is survived by his son Sukhbir Singh Badal, who is currently the president of the Shiromani Akali Dal, and daughter Preneet Kaur, who is married to Adarsh Pratap Singh Kairon, grandson of former Congress chief minister Pratap Singh Kairon.
Badal lost his wife Surinder Kaur to cancer in 2011. His elder brother Gurdas, with whom he was very close, passed away in 2020. Manpreet will not carry forward the legacy of Prakash Singh Badal.
grand old master of politics
Badal was a grand old master of Punjab’s dusty, rustic, rural politics. An early riser, his discipline for keeping time and schedule down to the minute is legendary. Punjab bureaucrats often recall how as chief minister he used to call them early in the morning after reading a news Give a report demanding immediate action on this.
Farming remained his only hobby until the end, taking a personal and keen interest in his fruit and bee farms.
A frugal eater who never missed a bout of moderate exercise, his boundless energy and phenomenal memory of people, even those he met briefly, would continue to generate awe and respect for years.
His greatest strength as a politician is being among the people he meets in the crowd throughout the day, in or out of power. But above all, it was his utterly self-effacing demeanor and grace, and a rare infectious smile that disarmed staunch critics and detractors.
(Editing by Richa Mishra)