The Shiromani Akali Dal has witnessed an overwhelmingly progressive decline since the 2017 assembly elections. The actual challenge for the Akali Dal started in 2014 when the Aam Aadmi Party contested for the first time and massively cut into the traditional support base of the party. Despite being in power, the party did not take any corrective measures.
2014 should have been the wake-up call for the Akali Dal. In 2017, the Akali Dal suffered a massive defeat and was reduced to third place after the AAP, while the Congress formed the government. The ultimate doom was spelt in 2022, when one of the oldest political parties in the country was reduced to just three members in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha. All the Akali stalwarts, including the grand patron and five-time Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, his son Sukhbir Singh Badal and Bikram Singh Majithia, all lost the assembly segments they contested from. Badal lost his pocket borough of Lambi.
The erosion of the Akali vote base that began in 2014 was completed in 2022. But now the Akali Dal is definitely on a recovery path. Sukhbir Badal is getting a good response to his programmes. He has managed to capitalize on the anti-incumbency against the ruling AAP. A substantial section of the voters that had defected to the AAP has started returning to the party.
But, at the same time, the Akali Dal is faced with another serious challenge, that of the radical outfit ‘Waris Punjab De’ (WPD) founded by the father and supporters of jailed MP Amritpal Singh. In fact, in the 2024 General Elections, the radicals won two parliamentary constituencies of Khadoor Sahib, from where Amritpal won and Faridkot, from where Sarabjit Singh, son of Indira Gandhi’s assassin Beant Singh, won.
Some of the leaders from the Akali Dal, like Manpreet Singh Ayali, have also joined the Waris Punjab De. There is a section of traditional Akali voters which had switched over to the AAP in 2022, which is now inclined towards the WPD. It may not make any substantial gains, but it has the potential of causing immense loss to the moderate Shiromani Akali Dal which will be pitched against the Congress and the AAP.
While right now, WPD, is a serious challenge to the moderate Akalis, the situation may not necessarily remain the same till the time of elections. In case the Akali Dal and the BJP align together, as the speculations are strong after Sukhbir Badal met the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the moderates’ position will definitely get strengthened. Besides, the ‘anger’ against the Akalis, particularly Sukhbir has reduced substantially, if not completely.
The moderates’ main hope remains in the fact that Punjabis/Sikhs are by nature not inclined towards radicals. If the radicals managed to win two parliamentary seats, it was more a vote against the AAP and the moderates, than any preference for the radicals.
If Sukhbir manages to reorganize the party well, which he is already doing and with a possible alliance with the BJP, the moderate Akalis may manage to reoccupy the lost space. But the challenge remains and serious at that.
(Views expressed are personal.)