Team Blitz India
FOLLOWING the debacle in the Lok Sabha elections, a group of senior Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leaders raised a banner of revolt against party president Sukhbir Singh Badal by launching the ‘Akali Dal Bachao Lehar’ in Jalandhar.
After a five-hour meeting to discuss the future of the party, the leaders demanded Sukhbir step down as SAD chief. Prominent among the leaders were Prem Singh Chandumajra, Sikander Singh Maluka, Bibi Jagir Kaur, Parminder Singh Dhindsa and Sarwan Singh Phillaur.
“A personality having a strong political and religious understanding should be given the command of the party,” Chandumajra said.
The leaders skipped the meeting of halqa in-charges convened by Sukhbir in Chandigarh. Sukhbir termed the meeting as another attempt to weaken the Panthic force of the Shiromani Akali Dal. The Jalandhar West assembly byelection, scheduled on July 10, and four more seats of Gidderbaha, Chabbewal, Barnala and Dera Baba Nanak are set to be held in the coming months.
In the June Lok Sabha elections, of the 13 seats in Punjab that it contested, the SAD managed to win just one seat — Bathinda — which was retained by Sukhbir Badal’s wife Harsimrat. Since the Lok Sabha results, the SAD is not only facing criticism over the Amritpal issue, but also over demands for reforms within the party. Party leaders, including Dhindsa, Bibi Jagir Kaur and Manpreet Singh Ayali, had spoken up over the SAD’s repeated poor show in the elections — assembly polls in 2017 and 2022 and the recent parliamentary election. “It (party’s electoral performance) can’t be worse than this. We need to sit and do a serious thinking as to what needs to be done to save the party’s existence,” Dhindsa said earlier this month.
