Chandigarh: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have a family problem to deal with when he prepares his list of ministers: Who between the Badal couple should he pick for his Cabinet?
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), the BJP’s ally in Punjab, has only two MPs — party chief Sukhbir Singh Badal and his wife Harsimrat Kaur Badal. From among them, the prime minister can, at best, elevate only one as a union minister.
Harsimrat has experience at the Centre. She was the Minister of Food Processing Industries in the first Modi government and had been an efficient minister. But Sukhbir has political pedigree — not only is he the SAD president but he was also the deputy chief minister of Punjab for eight years.
Modi is likely to leave it to the SAD leadership to take a call on who they would want to nominate. SAD sources, however, maintain that it’s for the prime minister to decide.
“I am not even thinking on those lines,” Sukhbir told The Print while on his way to pay obeisance at the Golden Temple in Amritsar Friday.
“I am grateful to waaheguru that he has given me the opportunity to serve the people of Ferozepur and that is what will be my focus. I will continue to work with my cadre in the state and strengthen the Akali Dal-BJP alliance.”
Also read: Punjab breaks Modi wave as Congress wins big, BJP-Akali down to 4 seats
A special relationship
While the Akalis have only two seats and cannot numerically compete with far more formidable BJP allies such as the Shiv Sena, which has 18 seats, the party is one of the BJP’s oldest allies.
Modi has also publicly displayed personal and political respect for SAD patron Parkash Singh Badal, going to the extent of touching his feet at his nomination in Varanasi.
The continuing relevance of SAD is also because of the importance of Punjab as a border state — a front against Pakistan. The national need to support all Sikh moderate opinion in Punjab and any slide back of the state into militancy underlines the vital significance of SAD as an ally of the BJP.
The SAD’s national importance, therefore, transcends federal electoral arithmetic.
To this may be added the abiding limitation of the BJP’s political profile in the state. Woefully lacking in any tall political leader at the state level, the BJP has for several decades been content with being a subordinate partner to the Akalis.
Any attempt by any section of the BJP to alter this configuration and transform into the senior partner is likely to have repercussions and may push SAD into adopting radical or militant postures that might cost the state and the nation heavily.
Also read: Amarinder blames Sidhu for ‘poor’ Congress showing in Punjab’s urban areas
Boost for Badals
Considering that the attack on Badal family was the mainstay of the Congress campaign in these elections in Punjab, a victory for the couple is a big boost to their political fortunes, enough to silence their worst critics.
The Akalis have reasons to cheer despite having lost eight of the 10 seats they contested. They have mustered 27.45 per cent of the vote share in the state, marginally higher than even their 2014 figure of 26. 37 per cent.
The good showing comes on the back of the drubbing that the party received in the 2017 Assembly elections when it finished third behind AAP, and an even bigger low last year when it was on the brink of losing its core panthic vote bank over the desecration row.
The Badals were held responsible, by a judicial commission, for the 2015 cases of the desecration of the Sikh holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib. The party split into two, with its old guard breaking away to form a new political outfit. The Badal family resorted to apologising at the Golden Temple for its acts of omission and commission.
The Congress once again made sacrilege the mainstay of its Lok Sabha campaign but the issue appears to have not resonated that much with voters given that both Sukhbir and Harsimrat won.
It is really a great question for Modi Ji. But in my opinion Smt Harsimrat Kaul Badal will be better choice to induct into the centre ministry, as she has already enough exposure and also dignified and respectable woman as well as affectionate wife. She may be proved as a better minister than her husband. Further Sukhbir Singh was controversial figure in Punjab during working as Deupty Chief Minister.