Days after the Shiromani Akali Dal’s core committee find solace in the increase in its vote share and win of the Badal couple in the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections, a section of senior party leaders on Wednesday pinned blame on the “extra focus” on the two constituencies — Bathinda and Ferozepur — that resulted in party’s drubbing.
The leaders also expressed serious concern over the decline in party’s Sikh voters, and falling popularity in the state.
The views were expressed during the meeting of party’s five-member panel, headed by Rajya Sabha MP Balwinder Singh Bhunder, which met for the first time on Wednesday to discuss ways to reorganize Akali Dal’s organisational structure after resounding defeat in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Other than Bhunder, the panel comprises former Minister Daljit Singh Cheema, former Minister Tota Singh, Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee president Manjinder Singh Sirsa and former MP Prem Singh Chandumajra.
The committee was formed after it was felt that the SAD needs to restructure its organisation, from top to the grass root level, especially after its back-to-back defeats since 2017 state assembly elections, followed by byelections, civic body polls, and now the parliamentary elections.
In fact, SAD president Sukhbir Badal had appreciated its ally, Bharatiya Janta Party’s booth management programme which helped it to secure victory in two out of the three seats it contested, with an increase in its vote share.
Even as the Badals and SAD have always been considered synonymous, the victory of its power couple — SAD chief Sukhbir Badal from Ferozepur and his wife Harsimrat Badal from Bathinda — failed to pull the party out of the doldrums.
Out of the total 10 seats it contested, the Badal duo won two, but the remaining eight candidates failed to taste the success. A senior party leader, during the meeting, described it as “the victory for the Badals but loss for the Akali Dal”.
It has been learnt that a senior party leader maintained that the SAD mainly focused on the two constituencies from where the Badals contested, but failed to give its 100 per cent on the remaining seats which led to party’s defeat.
During the core group meeting, the mood in SAD-BJP camp was that of celebrations which rejoiced over the Badals’ victory and hailed the increase in its vote share.
The party registered a marginal increase in its vote share, from 26.4 percent in 2014 to 27.49 percent in 2019, but SAD’s tally came down to just two, that too at a time when the nation was swept by Modi tsunami.
In Wednesday meeting, the leaders agreed that the results are sure to leave the party thinking about a factor which they have all along been relegating to the trashcan of their thoughts — prevailing anger amongst the people on sacrilege issue.
SAD-BJP combine had believed that anti-incumbency against the Congress in the State and Modi factor across the nation is so strong that it, in no way, let the sacrilege and related firing issue come in its way towards victory. But, the results have proved it the other way.
Nearly wiped out in 2017 elections, SAD’s strategy to lay its bet on the winning and trusted horses had failed to give desired results. Except the Badal couple, all senior leaders including Parminder Singh Dhindsa, Prof Prem Singh Chandumajra, Bibi Jagir Kaur, Gulzar Singh Ranike, Charanjit Singh Atwal, and Surjit Singh Rakhra, were made to bite dust.