SAD leader Parminder Singh Dhindsa, it seems, has finally decided to follow footsteps of his father and SAD’s Rajya Sabha MP Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, who has already raised a banner of revolt against the party and the Badals after resigning from all party posts in September 2018 and joined hands with a Akali faction — SAD Taksali.
Parminder, who is party MLA from Lehra Gaga, on Friday submitted a simple one-line resignation with the SAD president Sukhbir Badal as the leader of party’s legislative wing, without specifying any reason. Sukhbir, who has all along been claiming Parminder’s support even as his father was openly speaking against the party, wasted no time in accepting the resignation.
At the same time, Sukhbir announced that former Minister and party MLA from Sahnewal, Sharanjit Singh Dhillon, will now hold the post of legislative party leader.
Parminder Dhindsa, who was appointed the leader of legislative party in August 2018, has gone incommunicado after his father decided to side with the Taksali splinter group to celebrate the Akali Dal’s 99th foundation day on December 14 instead of SAD (Badal) event.
The former Finance Minister, Parminder strategically chose to stay away from both the events.
He also gave a miss to the party’s protest dharna in Chief Minister’s home city, Patiala, December 21. Claiming that junior Dhindsa is by his side, Sukhbir had then defended him saying that Parminder had taken his permission to go to Mumbai for urgent work.
Only recently, Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa had opened front against the SAD leadership, especially its president Sukhbir Badal “to liberate Akali Dal” from the Badal family and “revive its lost glory”.
He had made clear his intent to slug it out with the party’s top leadership “while staying in the party” while at the same time, daring the party leadership to “expel” him.
Veteran Akali leader had even openly demanded Sukhbir’s resignation as the party president to restore democracy in the party, while declaring the SAD’s presidential election as “undemocratic” and “unconstitutional”.
“I will protest while staying in the party. I will not resign…If the party wants to expel me, they can do it,” he had stated after a workers’ meeting at Sangrur on December 18.
Dhindsa had then also claimed that his son is also with him in his fight. “Parminder is my son and he will go with me,” Dhindsa had said while maintaining that he had no personal fight with anyone but against the way the party is functioning at present.
Rajya Sabha MP has been maintaining a distance with the party leadership since more than a year after he resigned from the party posts in September 2018.
It was only on December 14 (Saturday) that he openly came out against the parent Akali Dal by joining its splinter faction, SAD Taksali, to commemorate SAD’s 99th foundation day.
SAD Taksali came into being just ahead the 2017 state assembly elections with a call to liberate Akali Dal from the control of the Badals and has all along been claiming to be a “real Akali Dal”.
Now, Dhindsa has joined hands with the taksali faction which already has the Akali stalwarts former MP Ranjit Singh Brahmpura, former MP Ratan Singh Ajnala, former state Minister Sewa Singh Sekhwan, among others.
Notably, the five-time Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal is maintaining a distance from the party functioning owing to his bad health, and Sukhbir Badal is running the show.
Ahead the 2017 election, SAD passed through its worst ever political crisis with the party’s old guard raising its voice against the functioning of the party’s current “young” leadership, and questioning the party’s role in the Akal Takht pardon to Sirsa-based Dera sect head Ram Rahim Singh, and series of sacrilege incidents. One by one, the traditional Akali leaders left the SAD’s sinking ship.
The Badal father-son duo had ruled Punjab for a decade, until they were ousted by the Congress in 2017.
When on a winning spree, everyone appreciated Sukhbir’s election management skill, accrediting a shift from SAD’s style of traditional panthic politics to the one based on development agenda.
But the series of sacrilege incidents and the related firing incidents, coupled with SAD-administered apology to Dera Sacha Sauda chief, had hurt SAD’s image to a large extent, with its own leaders going against the party. Party’s resounding defeat in 2017 polls was also attributed to the same reasons.
At its lowest ebb, the Akali Dal has been trying hard to make its way back among the Sikh masses. Various panthic leaders and organizations, besides the rebel taksali Akalis, have been raising their voice to free SAD from the “clutches of the Badals”.