Chandigarh: Akali Dal leader and former deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal vows to fight for a separate identity for the Sikhs. As part of his game plan, he calls for an amendment to Article 25 of the Constitution that brackets the Sikhs with the Hindus and establish its status as a separate religion. In an interview, Sukhbir reflected a new-found assertion vis-a-vis ally, the BJP.
He said an organisational revamp is on to infuse fresh blood in SAD. In the recent re-jig, the general secretaries are younger. The senior leadership has gone to vice-president level. Soon, there will be an overhaul in the youth and women wings. The aim is to rejuvenate the party at the grassroots after assessing what went wrong last year.
When asked about the party faring as number three in the last assembly election, he said number doesn’t matter, vote shares do. One way to look at it is that the Akali Dal got only 15 seats. Another way is - that’s how I look at it - that despite a tsunami of wrong propaganda, the Akalis got 32% vote share, only 8% less than the percentage who voted for us in 2007. The Congress got 38% and the Aam Aadmi Party 21% vote share. It shows our strength at the grassroots and that people still have faith in Akalis. That’s why we survived the electoral earthquake.
When asked whether SAD represents Sikhs or Punjabis, he said, Akali Dal is a Punjabi party. But we are also the voice of Sikhs across the world. Before the Moga convention in 1996, only Sikhs were its members. After that, we made it for all Punjabis. In our tenure from 2007-12, there were more Hindu MLAs on the Akali side than in the Congress. When told that the BJP may not like this scenario, he said, “we are not answerable to them. Nor have they conveyed this to me. It’s my duty to widen the Akali base. The Hindus have more faith in (former chief minister) Parkash Singh Badal than any other leader of the state. They feel the Akali Dal is for us. In 30 years when he was at the helm, he made all Punjabis feel one. He is a unifier.
When asked about catering to the Sikh constituency, he said, “we are the face and voice of the Sikhs. Whenever there is any issue regarding the community such as the renaming of the Dyal Singh Majithia College in Delhi, we fight for it. There’s nothing to be ashamed or apologetic about it. Rather, we’re proud of it.” He said Sikhism is an independent religion and needs an independent identity and for that purpose SAD would meet the Prime Minister, take other parties on board and bring a bill in Parliament to amend Article 25 of the constitution so that Sikhs can get a separate identity.
