Punjab: Sukhbir Singh Badal dissolves SAD, meeting on its overhaul soon

Chandigarh: A day after the Shiromani Akali Dal’s (SAD’s) core committee asked party president Sukhbir Badal for its revamp in the backdrop of its poor show in the February assembly election, the party chief dissolved it here late Thursday evening.

Sources in the party said Sukhbir is likely to call a meeting of senior party leaders in a week or two to discuss SAD overhauling. The step comes in the wake of the recommendations of a SAD committee formed to analyse the reasons for the party’s debacle in the 2022 Punjab assembly polls.

A party release on Thursday evening said that all bodies, including the core committee, the working committee, and other units as well as all wings of the party stood dissolved.

The SAD leader Balwinder Singh Bhunder had on Wednesday said the 13-member committee did not recommend a change in its leadership and gave the party president full powers to rejig the party structure in line with the Jhundan panel recommendations.

The panel, led by Iqbal Singh Jhundan, had visited about 100 assembly constituencies to take feedback from party workers and other people. The release said the party’s core committee - the highest decision making body - , had recommended dissolution and reconstitution of the party’s organisational structure as well as several other steps to rejuvenate the party in line with Panthic and Punjabis’ interests. It had also recommended that the party’s organisational structure must be reconstituted as the first step towards its rejuvenation. It also recommended norms for restructuring of the party and its hierarchy in the light of the values that had originally inspired the party. It had also sought special focus on the aspirations of the youth.

It may be recalled that SAD had managed to win only three seats in the 117-member House, pushing it into an existential crisis. In the Sangrur by-election too, the party was pushed to the sidelines as its candidate lost the security deposit.

Published on: Friday, July 29, 2022, 08:57 PM IST