Bibi Jagir Kaur ousted, but growing dissent in SAD a reality for Badals

The voices of dissent, however, did not stop there and in February 2020 the party’s working committee member and Rajya Sabha MP Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa and his son Parminder Singh Dhindsa, an MLA, were expelled for publicly questioning the SAD top brass. Dhindsa and SAD (Taksali) leaders formed the SAD (Sanyukt) in May 2021. The outfit contested the Assembly elections earlier this year in alliance with the BJP and former Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh’s Punjab Lok Congress but could not open its account.

“All the episodes one after another indicate that SAD leaders want a change in leadership to revamp the party and hence rebel voices are growing louder … It is high time that the SAD self-introspects,” said a senior party functionary on the condition of anonymity.

Kaur’s expulsion has only served to bring the focus sharply back on the Badals and the calls for a leadership change. In the aftermath of the party’s debacle in the Assembly polls in which it won just three seats, the lowest ever, Sukhbir Singh Badal set up a review panel under the chairmanship of Iqbal Singh Jhundan. The 13-member committee, in a report submitted in July, did not recommend any change in the top leadership and authorised Badal to “take the necessary follow-up action on the implementation of the committee’s recommendations”.

Following the disciplinary action against her, Kaur claimed that the SAD had become a “one-man party”. At the centre of her tussle with the former Punjab deputy chief minister is the control of the SGPC, whose president is elected for a one-year tenure by the organisation’s general body. Though the SGPC members’ polls are supposed to be held every five years, they have not been organised since 2011. At present, 157 of the 170 SGPC members are SAD-backed candidates and the president is invariably a person chosen by the party president. The SGPC is the apex Sikh body that is responsible for the management of gurdwaras in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, and Chandigarh.

In 1999, Kaur became the first woman to lead the SGPC. She served the post again in 2004-’05 and 2020-’21. She is among those pushing for elections to be held. She has claimed that SGPC members have made up their minds to elect a president rather than agreeing to support the one chosen by the Badals. The SGPC general body is set to meet at Teja Singh Samundari Hall in Amritsar on November 9 to elect a president.

According to the SAD’s disciplinary committee, Kaur was making a play for the SGPC president’s post and was meeting with the religious body’s members on her own for the past three months. The SAD alleged that BJP leaders Iqbal Singh Lalpura and Sarchand Singh Khiyala had also approached SGPC members to urge them to vote in Kaur’s favour.

SAD leader Manpreet Singh Ayali, who was one of the members of the Jhundan committee, questioned the party for acting against Kaur over her alleged links with the BJP while it supported Droupadi Murmu’s candidature for the post of President of India even though she was the nominee of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The BJP was not concerned about the issues of Sikhs, Ayali claimed.

Asked about the Kaur episode, SAD spokesperson Daljeet Singh Cheema said, “I, along with senior SAD leader Surjit Singh Rakhra, went to convince Bibi ji not to contest this time but she was adamant. No doubt the party is passing through a rough patch at this time and we need to revamp it completely but that does not mean that someone will send discipline for a toss. If a senior leader does this, what larger message does it send to junior leaders? Party discipline is of utmost importance and we cannot tolerate this sort of indiscipline. Due action was taken after much deliberation.”