Chandigarh: Sukhbir Badal was elected Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president unanimously in the organisational election held at Teja Singh Samundri Hall at the Golden Temple complex, Amritsar, on Saturday. This is the fourth time that he has been elected to the post.
Sukhbir, 62, had resigned from the post of SAD president on November 16, 2024, after Akal Takht - the supreme temporal seat of Sikhs - declared him and few other SAD leaders ``tankhaiya’’ (guilty of religious misconduct).
Sukhbir had handed over the charge of running the party affairs to working committee led by Balwinder Singh Bhundar on August 30, 2024 and resigned from the post of SAD president on November 16, 2024, ahead of receiving religious punishment (tankhah) from Akal Takht.
Akal Takht had on December 2, last, pronounced Sukhbir and others ``guilty’’ Akali leaders as ``tankhaiya’’, directed the SAD working committee to accept Sukhbir’s resignation and hold fresh polls for SAD office-bearers within six months.
Sukhbir and others had subsequently served various "tankhah’’ including cleaning utensils, shoes and washrooms for 10 days at different gurdwaras. Notably, Sukhbir Badal had narrowly escaped an assassination bid when an ex-Khalistani militant opened fire at him outside the Golden Temple in Amritsar where the Sukhbir was serving his religious punishment as a "sevadar’’ on December 4, 2024.
Akal Takht had pronounced the religious punishments to them for the ``mistakes’’ committed by SAD government from 2007 to 2017 and its failure to address key issues of the Sikh community, when Sukhbir was the party leader and deputy chief minister and his father SAD patriarch Parkash Singh Badal, the chief minister.
These "mistakes’’ included - revocation of the blasphemy case against Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh for imitating Guru Gobind Singh in 2007, the failure to punish perpetrators of the Bargari sacrilege and police officials for the Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan firing incidents, appointment of controversial IPS officer Sumedh Saini as Punjab DGP besides giving Farzana Alam, the wife of controversial police officer Izhar Alam, the party ticket in the 2012 assembly polls and failing to deliver justice to victims in fake encounter cases.
Notably, it was because of these "mistakes’’ that some of the senior SAD leaders had rebelled against Sukhbir last year and approached Akal Takht admitting mistakes and stating that these "mistakes’’ had damaged the image of Panth and weakened the SAD.
Pertinently, all the rebel leaders including Gurpartap Singh Wadala, Bibi Jagir Kaur, Prem Singh Chandumajra and Surjit Singh Rakhra, stayed away from the poll process. The SAD, which once held significant sway over state politics, currently has only two (out of total 117) MLAs in the state assembly.
