Panel doesn’t recommend change in SAD leadership

The SAD core committee, presided by Badal, applauded and accepted the Jhundan panel’s report and thanked its members for their “thorough painstaking and honest feedback” from the party workers and the people at large. The core committee also gave Badal “full powers to rejig the party structure” in line with the Jhundan-panel recommendations.

The decision came even as senior leader and former MP Prem Singh Chandumajra questioned the move by the SAD core committee of bypassing the Bhunder committee, of which he too was part. Chandumajra said the Jhundan committee report should have been ideally submitted before Bhunder committee, before being discussed in the party’s core committee.

“Ideally, the sub-committee report should have been deliberated in parent committee of 13-members led by Balwinder Bhunder before it was presented in the party’s core committee,” said Chandumajra.

He did not attend core committee meeting.

Former Nakodar MLA Gurpartap Singh Wadala, who was part of Jhundan committee, seconded Chandumajra,

“Many party leaders have regards for [SAD president] Sukhbir Badal and they don’t open up in front of him. So, ideally, the report should have been first discussed in the 13-member committee led by Bhunder, which was constituted on the recommendation of party’s core committee,” Wadala told The Indian Express.

Meanwhile, Badal continues to manage the show with loyal supporters, majority of whom are youth Akali Dal leaders, even as seasoned Akali politicians have been expressing anguish over his working and pressing for a change.

That he is no longer in good books of seasoned leaders was apparent after party MLA from Dakha Manpreet Singh Ayali — one of three party legislators — abstained from voting in the presidential elections in which Akali Dal had extended support to Droupadi Murmu. Ayali, the Akali legislature party chief, had expressed anguish that he was not consulted before party announced support for the BJP candidate. “Even the Sikh community was also not consulted about it,” Ayali had said.

Ayali had also sought the implementation of the Jhundan–panel report saying that the panel had recorded the sentiments of people, workers and the Sikh community after visiting 100 Assembly constituencies. He said the party could be strengthened had the report been implemented. “I think if the leadership change is brought the party can be strengthened in the coming time,” he said.

Senior Akali leader Sikander Singh Maluka, meanwhile, said that the Bhunder committee comprised of party’s core committee members only and hence the report was discussed in the core committee itself.

On change in party leadership, Maluka said, “There is not a single word in the report that read that Sukhbir Badal be removed as party president. He will continue to lead the party”.

The report, interestingly, has recommended sweeping changes in party organisation and a total overhaul. The report blamed incidents of sacrilege and police firing during the Akali regime in 2015 for party’s debacle in the the 2017 elections — when it was reduced to 15 seats and in 2022 when it could win only three — apart from feedback from party cadre over monopolizing transport business. It recommended an unconditional apology by Akal Takht admitting that Akali Dal regretted the incidents of sacrilege.

Briefing newspersons after the core committee meeting, Balwinder Singh Bhunder said, “The poll review committee report highlights both the strengths and the weaknesses and the achievements and the shortcomings of the party in the past as well as the challenges and opportunities before it in the days to come”.

He said that party president had set up the committee for “totally honest assessment of the performance of the party minus the frills as well as the reasons that led to its less than satisfactory showing in the elections”

Badal has been authorized to take whatever steps he deems necessary for streamlining the functioning and refurbishing the public profile of the party, including holding wide-ranging consultations with a cross section of Sikh intellectuals, religious and political ideologues, teachers, students, farmers, traders, employees, social activists as well as eminent Punjabis from all sections of society including the NRIs, said Bhunder.

Badal is expected to take inputs from various units of the party including the working committee, district and circle jathedars, SGPC members and party cadre at the grassroots, said Bhunder.

Earlier, Ayali had said that if the SAD fights for the rights of Punjab and the Sikh community rather than going after gaining power, people will again repose faith in it.

Ayali had said the SAD is the representative of ‘Panth’ and has always fought battles for Punjab’s rights. “But today what the situation of the party is that we are left with just three seats. Somewhere, the party committed some mistakes and also made wrong decisions in the past,” Ayali had said.