Top leaders raise voice against current leadership
The simmering discontentment in Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) against current leadership is surfacing with its top leaders raising their voices of dissent. What was a whisper in Akali Dal’s corridors is now being heard loud and clear in public.
A day after SAD’s veteran and party’s one of the few senior-most leaders Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa threw a letter bomb announcing his decision to stay away from active politics, its other three senior leaders from Majha minced no words to say that all was not well within the Akali Dal.
Already under fire for its alleged involvement in sacrilege and related firing cases, the Akali Dal is walking on a tight rope to save its dented image. To rescue the party from its worst-ever crisis, Akali patriarch Parkash Singh Badal has to come out of hibernation, he went into right after the party’s 2017 state assembly election debacle.
It has been learnt that several senior leaders had raised concerns over the prevailing state of affairs in the party, besides questioned the “young” leadership. Party’s old guard, including former minister Tota Singh, party MP Prem Singh Chandumajra and former Minister Sewa Singh Sekhwan, had pointed at the way the young MLAs failed to defend the party in the Vidhan Sabha during debate on Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report, and how the Congress managed to gain from the entire episode.
Sources informed The Pioneer that party veterans were not happy with the things taking shape in the state, that too ahead 2019 Lok Sabha polls, besides the leadership of its president Sukhbir Badal, and his brother-in-law and party MLA Bikram Singh Majithia.
Even as three senior Taksali leaders — MP Ranjit Singh Brahmpura, former MP Dr Rattan Singh Ajnala and former Minister Sewa Singh Sekhwan — on Sunday categorically denied to follow Dhindsa’s footsteps by stepping down from party posts, the trio made it clear that they would raise the “issues” concerning party at the right forum and work to improve the same.
What indicated their unhappiness with the current state leadership that the trio from Majha region did not invite Majithia, who is popularly known and nicknamed as ‘Majhe da jarnail’ (Majha’s soldier).
Without naming any one, they raised questions on the party’s functioning, indicating towards Sukhbir Badal.
They admitted that everything was not well in the Akali Dal and also not in the panthic organizations like the Shiromani Gurudwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) and the Akal Takht.
The trio announced that they would take up these issues with the SAD core committee and would work to get these corrected. “We would not leave the party, but would push out wrongdoers out from SAD,” they said.
Sekhwan said that he would convene a meeting within a week to draw their next strategy.