Chandigarh: Months after the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) saw its worst ever performance in an assembly election, battle lines have been drawn within the party. Bibi Jagir Kaur, a senior Akali leader, is about to take on its official candidate, Harjinder Singh Dhami, in the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee’s (SGPC) presidential election Wednesday.
On Monday, the SAD’s disciplinary committee announced it had expelled Jagir Kaur — a three-time former president of the SGPC — for “anti-party activities”, including “becoming party to a conspiracy to break the SGPC”. She was expelled after she failed to appear in person before the disciplinary committee.
Addressing a press conference, SAD disciplinary committee chairman Sikander Singh Maluka said it had taken disciplinary action after exhausting all its options.
“The SAD has always sought to present panthic unity by putting forward a single candidate for the post of president of the SGPC after the party president takes the views of all members individually. We fail to understand why Bibi Jagir Kaur wanted to change this norm and create confusion in the Sikh community as it only helps forces inimical to the panth,” he said.
The development comes days after Jagir Kaur announced she was running as an independent candidate. On its part, the party had announced Saturday that it would field Dhami — the incumbent SGPC president — once again.
Jagir Kaur’s open rebellion could add to the problems of the SAD, which was all but decimated in the Punjab assembly elections held earlier this year.
The Akali Dal exercises significant control over the SGPC through its president. A defeat for its candidate could mean the party losing its grip over the Sikh body, its last bastion.
Also called the mini parliament of the Sikhs, the SGPC controls and runs 83 gurdwaras in Punjab and other states. Elections to the post of president, to the 11-member executive committee, and for office-bearers are expected to be held Wednesday during the SGPC’s annual general body meeting at the Teja Singh Samundri Hall in Amritsar’s Golden Temple.
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Jagir Kaur’s open defiance
Jagir Kaur, who became the SGPC’s first woman president in the year 2000, was expecting her name to be announced as the party’s candidate But after it became clear that the Akalis were going to choose Dhami over her, she announced that she was contesting as an independent candidate.
The SGPC is a 191-member body that is elected through a universal ballot among Sikhs across India. Elections to the body are normally held every five years but presidential polls are held every year.
In most cases, the post of the SGPC president is filled by a consensus candidate — that is, a person largely seen as having the top Akali Dal leadership’s stamp of approval.
When no consensus is reached, SGPC members vote for a president. Since most SGPC members owe their allegiance to the SAD, the party’s candidate is usually chosen.
For instance, when Jagir Kaur was elected president in 2020, she secured 122 of the 143 votes cast, replacing Gobind Singh Longowal, who had been SGPC chief for three consecutive years.
Last year, Dhami, Akali Dal’s official candidate, was challenged by another member, Mithu Singh Kahneke. Dhami secured a landslide win, getting 122 of the total votes cast.
For the past two decades, the Akali Dal’s authority over the SGPC elections has remained unbroken. Before that, the late 1990s had seen turmoil hit this largely symbiotic relationship, when former Akali leader Gurcharan Singh Tohra, who had until that point been SGPC president for 25 years, challenged the SAD’s authority.
In 1999, Parkash Badal, then chief minister of the Punjab and president of the SAD, removed Tohra as SGPC chief and installed Jagir Kaur in his place.
While Jagir Kaur hasn’t attained Tohra’s stature in panthic politics, her open defiance of the Akali Dal and her act of positioning herself as an independent candidate could potentially affect a party already beset with problems.
Soon after the SAD’s defeat in the 2017 Punjab assembly election, several members of the party’s old guard deserted it. As they left, they blamed Sukhbir Singh Badal — son of Parkash Singh Badal and the SAD’s current working president — and his brother-in-law Bikram Singh Majithia for the party’s electoral failure.
The assembly polls held earlier this year saw the SAD’s seat tally go down further, to 3 from 15.
The party is also facing allegations of misusing the SGPC for political gains.
‘Last nail in the Akali coffin’
Once considered close to the Badals, Jagir Kaur, a former MLA from Bholath in Punjab’s Kapurthala, belongs to the influential Lobana community.
She joined the Akali Dal in 1995 and was elected an SGPC member a year later. In 1997, she was given a party ticket for the assembly election and won from the Bholath constituency. Despite being a first-time MLA, she was taken in as a cabinet minister by Parkash Singh Badal.
The Badals’ support of her remained unstinting throughout the 18-year-long trial of a case involving the mysterious death of her daughter, Harpreet.
The case hit national headlines in April 2000 when Harpreet, alias Rosy, died while she was allegedly being shifted to a hospital in Ludhiana from the residence of a family friend in Phagwara.
Jagir Kaur was accused of having illegally confined Harpreet and forcing her to undergo an abortion. She was acquitted of all charges in 2018.
At Sunday’s press conference, Jagir Kaur laid out her election manifesto, promising to ensure that the SGPC remains autonomous and isn’t controlled by one political party. She also criticised the Akali Dal for what she called “lifafa (‘envelope’) culture” — a term commonly used in Punjab to describe an act of subverting the election process.
SGPC sources told ThePrint that Jagir Kaur had the support of members from Haryana and also of those who were opposed to the Akali Dal’s control over the SGPC. The general body meeting Wednesday will now prove to be a litmus test.
“The SGPC is the Akali Dal’s last bastion through which they are holding on to some power. In case their candidate loses as president, they will lose their authority over the SGPC and it will be like the last nail in their coffin,” an SGPC member told ThePrint on condition of anonymity.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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