The House of Badals
THE FIRST 
FAMILY Never before in its 96yearold history has the Akali Dal been helmed by as powerful a family as the Badals. Its critical pivot is Parkash Singh Badal who, now completing his fifth term as chief minister, has dominated Punjab longer than
A MODERATE TO THE CORE, BADAL HAS MASTERED THE ART OF USING PANTHIC IDIOM FOR HIS REALPOLITIK
He lights up amid people. Parkash Singh Badal, once the youngest sarpanch of India and now its oldest chief minister, is a people’s politician, a title that even his most virulent critics don’t deny him. The morning is cold and gloomy, but the towering 6’2” 89-year-old is wide alert, beaming a smile at a sangat darshan, a tete-a-tete with villagers wrapped in blankets, eager to get their grouses to Badal Saab, gearing up for the election early next year.
It’s the cellular age – arch rival and Punjab Congress chief Capt Amarinder Singh has promised 50 lakh 4-G mobiles to Punjab voters – but the patron of the Shiromani Akali Dal believes in the old world one-onone connect. It’s never failed him, not since 1947 when he was first elected sarpanch of his namesake Badal village in Bathinda at the age of 20.
ALL IN THE FAMILY
Today the village, which has been transformed from a dusty hamlet to a sparkling oasis, is eponymous with the first dynasty of Punjab and the Akali Dal. The surname Badal spells power. The Punjab Cabinet has four members of the family – chief minister Badal, his deputy Sukhbir Singh Badal, son-in-law Adaish Partap Singh Kairon and Sukhbir’s brother-in-law Bikram Singh Majithia. Sukhbir’s wife Harsimrat is a Union minister.
It’s quite a moral climbdown for a leader who was once a harsh critic of the Gandhi dynasty.
The Shiromani Akali Dal, the country’s second oldest party known for morchas (movements) and motivated cadre, is now a family affair. Ashutosh Kumar, a professor at the political science department of Panjab University, says like Akbar, Badal has used matrimonial alliances to strengthen his hold on Punjab. “He married his daughter Parneet into the Congress heavyweight Kairon family, and his son into the powerful Majithia clan. Now he is systematically giving tickets to sons of Akali leaders to promote the hegemony of his own son.”
LONG INNINGS ON MIDDLE PATH
The Badal dynasty stems from the long innings of its patriarch, who still maintains a punishing schedule, starting his day with the sun at 5 and winding up at 11. His stamina is legendary. When asked about his age before the 2007 Punjab elections, he said: “Bhaj ke dikhawan (Shall I run and show you?)”
An MLA on a Congress ticket at 25, and the then youngest chief minister at 43, Badal Senior, as he is now known, has weathered 69 years in Punjab politics.
Badal recounts how he would’ve never entered politics had it not been for an influential relative, a minister, who acceded to his request for being made a tehsildar only to tear the appointment letter. He told me: “Become someone who appoints tehsildars.”
Ashutosh calls Badal’s middle path his greatest strength. Though he spent 17 years in jail in various Akali morchas – a fact that prompted Prime Minister Narendra Modi to call him Nelson Mandela – he never went against India.
Calling him a shrewd reconciler, Ashutosh says: “He built bridges with the BJP despite their ideological differences.”
Another Punjab expert says it’s essentially a social alliance. Badal knew this was the only way to heal the wounds caused by militancy.
1996 was a watershed. With an uncanny sense of popular mood, Badal broadened the SAD’s ideological underpinning from a Panthic entity to a party of Punjabis, and stitched up an alliance with the saffron party that swept into power in 1997. That catapulted Badal on to the centre-stage after two decades in political wilderness. The made-for-each-other alliance has since been going strong.
An artful balancer of his core Panthic ideals with his political interests stretching to other communities, Badal is inarguably the most popular Akali leader among the state’s 42% Hindu populace that looks up to him as the guarantor of communal amity. But his rock-solid support base lies in the rural peasantry – a constituency that he has assiduously nurtured.
Dr Pramod Kumar, director of the Institute of Development and Communication (IDC), attributes Badal’s long innings to his politics of moderation in a state riven by militancy, coupled with a strong understanding of the Punjab peasantry. “Also, most articulate leaders of the Akali Dal, like Partap Singh Kairon and Baldev Singh, joined the Congress.”
SHREWD POLITICIAN ENSURES SON RISE
Badal has always guarded his turf. Be it Gurcharan Singh Tohra, Baldev Singh or even Capt Amarinder Singh, he either kept them busy or cut them to size. In 1996, he denied the Patiala ticket to Capt Amarinder, pushing him back to the Congress. Badal has shrewdly sidelined potential challengers from within the party and drafted frontline Akali leaders’ progeny into Akali politics – all this, to consolidate Sukhbir’s grip on the party.
In a carefully choreographed succession politics, Sukhbir was anointed party chief, and heir apparent, in 2008 when he was barely 45. That laid the foundation of the first family-dominated rule in Akali history. Today, Sukhbir and Harsimrat are the fulcrum of Akali power politics.
LIKE FATHER, UNLIKE SON
Badal has also mastered the Panthic idiom. Dr Manvinder Singh of the department of Guru Nanak Studies at Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, says what’s unique is the way he has continued to remain a committed Sikh, while giving equal respect to other religions and minorities. But other scholars criticise his appropriation of the Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) and the Akal Takht. It’s no secret that he appoints the SGPC chief.
Today, the Badal brand of politics is under fire by his sonheir apparent. An officer says: “If Badal is substance, Sukhbir is style.” Comparing them, an observer says: “While Badal’s politics sprouts from his actions, Sukhbir’s politics dictates his actions.”
LITMUS TEST FOR SPIRITED SURVIVOR
The charges of corruption against the family have been growing as has its conglomerate of businesses that include a transport company, TV channels and luxury hotels. An exponential growth of the Badals’s business empire has an overlap with their years in power since 2007 – an open secret that feeds an undercurrent of anger against the ruling family.
The family also saw a power struggle when Badal’s nephew Manpreet Badal, the finance minister from 2007-10, ditched the SAD to float his own outfit, the People’s Party of Punjab, and later joined the Congress. An insider says the family had decided to activate Sukhbir at the Centre and leave the state to Manpreet. Differences arose when Manpreet remained a passive spectator, while the Badals were hounded on charges of corruption by the Amarinder regime of 2002.
Harcharan Bains, a long-time aide of the CM, says that Badal doesn’t let professional (read political) events dictate his personal ties. While Badal Senior may continue to get along with his brother and Manpreet’s father Gurdas Badal, Manpreet and Sukhbir are not on talking termsToday, the man who draws his power from the common man faces a formidable challenge from the Aam Aadmi Party. Bains says Badal is a spirited survivor. “Every time the party is in trouble, he goes back to the people.” In the 2017 assembly elections, however, the Akali patriarch, who turned 89 last week, faces his last test that will judge not only his chequered legacy but also the future of the Badal dynasty. Meanwhile, Parkash Singh Badal is doing what he does best: Courting people.
NEXT: CAPTAIN’S CLAN
Hans now flies from Congress, lands in BJP for ‘homecoming’
Punjabi singer-politician Hans Raj Hans, 52, has left the Congress, too. He was welcomed into the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by its president Amit Shah in New Delhi on Saturday. Hans, who had quit the BJP’s partner Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) with a lot of verbal acrimony, and joined the Congress in February, termed this too a “homecoming”.
Pitching himself as a Dalit leader from the Valmiki community, he is being seen as a probable candidate from Jalandhar West for the Punjab assembly polls due early next year.
“I am impressed with the policies of PM Narendra Modi and expressed my desire to serve the party with Amit Shah,” he said, committing to “selfless service”. “Unfortunately, the Congress doesn’t like straightforward people,” he told HT. In the Congress, state chief Capt Amarinder Singh had recommended his name for a Rajya Sabha seat, but former minister Shamsher Singh Dullo, also a Dalit, was chosen instead at the last moment by the party high command. Hans had raised slogans over “discrimination” with Dalits at a rally in Amarinder’s presence, but was until recently seen by the former CM’s side.
Punjab BJP chief and Union minister Vijay Sampla — who is also a Dalit from the Doaba region where the community has an assertive majority presence — said, “Hans was in touch with the party for many days and had met me in Chandigarh. The party will benefit with his services.” Sources said Hans, whose ticket from the Congress was not assured owing to opposition to turncoats, is keen on contesting from Jalandhar West, represented by BJP minister Bhagat Chunni Lal, who has crossed the age of 75, making him ineligible to contest as per BJP norms now. Also, Hans’ house in Jalandhar falls in this constituency.
But there are murmurs within the BJP over his past record. Sources said his induction was facilitated by a BJP leader from Haryana, through national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, who was present at the time of his joining. “Hans is a liability. He has caused embarrassment to every party that he has joined,” a senior BJP leader, who wished not to be named, told HT.
SAD MINISTER HAPPY
Meanwhile, minister Gulzar Singh Ranike from Hans’ previous-to-previous party SAD, welcomed his joining the BJP, and underlined their being Dalits. “His desertion of the Congress in less than a year to join the BJP clearly reflects that self-respecting people have no place in the party.” Ranike added that Hans correctly sensed that Amarinder “can’t stand Dalits for long”.
Batala is Ghuggi’s launch pad as AAP names 4 more candidates
Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday announced its Punjab convener and actor Gurpreet Singh Waraich ‘Ghuggi’ as its candidate from Batala constituency, as it announced its latest list with four names for the upcoming state assembly polls.
PARDEEP PANDIT/HTAAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal with state unit chief Gurpreet Singh Waraich ‘Ghuggi’ at a rally at Adampur in Jalandhar district on Saturday.
END TO SPECULATIONS ABOUT FIELDING STATE CHIEF AGAINST BIKRAM SINGH MAJITHIA
Others on the list are Sukhwant Singh Padda from Kapurthala, Atul Nagpal from Abohar, and Sukhwinder Singh Mann from Sardulgarh.
Waraich, a native of Khokhar Faujian village in Batala, joined the AAP in February and was appointed convener replacing Sucha Singh Chhotepur who was removed after a video surfaced showing him allegedly taking bribe in exchange for poll tickets.
By naming him from Batala, the party has put the speculations to rest about fielding him against state revenue minister and Akali firebrand Bikram Singh Majithia from the Majitha constituency. The party had announced a few days back to field a “prominent face” against Majithia, just as it has named Bhagwant Mann against SAD boss and deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal.
Waraich, 45, popularly known as ‘Ghuggi’, is a graduate and has acted in several movies. He began his career with the Jalandhar Doordarshan.
With this list, number of AAP candidates announced has reached to 102 against 117 seats in the state assembly.
Consensus lacking, Cong list not before Dec 13
Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, December 10The first list of Congress candidates is set for more delay with no action expected at least till Tuesday. For, consensus has so far been reached only on 70 seats, it is learnt.Among the seats yet to be decided are the high-profile Bathinda (Urban) from where ex-Akali minister Manpreet Badal is a strong contender. But, PPCCchief Capt Amarinder Singh is pushing for Surinder Singla, arguing the seat is dominated by Hindu voters, and the sitting Akali MLA is a Hindu too.Similar confusion prevails on Ludhiana (East), which ex-minister Manish Tewari has sought. Some MLAs led by Congress MP from Ludhiana Ravneet Bittu feel Tewari’s claim would disturb local equations with some sitting MLAs not in favour of Tewari’s candidature.Another turn of events relates to senior leader Laal Singh who wants a ticket for his son from Samana whereas he himself has represented Sanaur several times. The Akali Dal has fielded Lok Sabha MP Prem Singh Chandumajra’s son from Sanaur. Chandumajra and Laal Singh are learnt to be friends, which explains why he wants to opt out of the race and wants a safer seat for his son.There’s also confusion in Gidderbaha where sitting MLA Amrinder Raja Warring is not too confident of a win. Raja is said to have sent ample feelers to the party to change his seat to Muktsar, where Karan Kaur Brar is the sitting Congress MLA. Sources say Karan Brar’s survey results are not promising, but they add that in principle decision has been taken to avoid seat-swapping for sitting MLAs except in case of reserved segments.
