Minister of State for Railways Ravneet Singh Bittu has caught the Shiromani Akali Dal leaders on the wrong foot and posed a terrible moral dilemma for them by suggesting that they should honour Narain Singh Chaura, who made an unsuccessful attempt on Sukhbir Singh Badal’s life, to honour him and hang his picture in the Darbar Sahib Museum.
Bittu tried to make a strong political point. Taking a jibe at the Akali leaders, he told them that they should hug and garland Chaura the way they have been honouring the assassins of his grandfather late Beant Singh who was assassinated in a suicide bomb blast. One of the surviving convicted co-conspirators Balwant Singh Rajoana has been awarded capital punishment. When he was released for a two-hour parole to attend the bhog ceremony of one of his relatives, Bikram Singh Majithia was seen hugging him.
After Chaura tried to fire at Sukhbir Badal inside the Golden Temple, the Akali leadership, Majithia in particular, was furious and outraged. Majithia also blamed the AAP government for being behind the murderous attack.
Reacting to Majithia’s angry outburst, which was obviously justified, Bittu taunted him by comparing it with the assassination of his own grandfather, Beant Singh. He said, while the assassins of his grandfather were praised and glorified and their pictures displayed in the Darbar Sahib Museum, they were seeking action against Chaura who had tried to do the same thing. Because, Bittu said, Chaura had felt justified in attacking Sukhbir as he had allegedly confessed to his “crime” of sacrilege. Sukhbir, however, had not confessed to sacrilege.
The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) has sought ex-communication of Narain Singh Chaura for attacking a Sikh inside the Golden Temple. A delegation of the SGPC made a representation to the Akal Takhat Jathedar on Saturday.
Bittu has raised a genuine question and put the Akalis on the backfoot. They are finding it difficult to counter Bittu, as while they are glorifying his grandfather’s assassins as also those of Indira Gandhi, they are seeking ex-communication of Chaura for the same thing. They cannot be right in both the cases.
This is the moral dilemma the Shiromani Akali Dal is facing and finding it difficult to explain and answer and navigate through. In the process the Akali Dal has tilted towards the “radical” side hoping that it may regain and retrieve the panthic constituency it has lost. But there is a difference between the panthic and the radical. In fact, the two can never go together.
Despite having taken a politically expedient stance of extending an olive branch to the radicals with different political gestures, the Shiromani Akali Dal has not been able to find any ground in Punjab for the last seven years. In the last parliamentary elections held in 2024, it slipped to fourth place in terms of popular vote share, getting only 13 percent, behind the Congress, the AAP and the BJP, which used to be its junior partner till 2020.
Former Chief Minister late Parkash Singh Badal realised this long ago. He never took any radical position. He was a moderate and he wanted to be seen as a moderate. He acted moderate as well. Sukhbir also is definitely a moderate and so is Majithia. They will need to assert themselves about it the same way the senior Badal did. They must realise that an overwhelming majority of the Sikhs is moderate and not radical or extremist. Had they been radicals, they would not have voted the Aam Aadmi Party to power in such overwhelming numbers, when they had an option in radical Simranjit Singh Mann.
The Akalis seem to be missing the point. Their vote base has eroded and it has shifted to the AAP and not to the radicals like Simranjit Singh Mann. Radical preacher Amritpal Singh did get elected to the parliament from Tarn Taran, but that was a one-time exception borne out of reaction. The same was the case in Faridkot where late Indira Gandhi’s assassin’s son Sarbjeet Singh also got elected. However, Sarabjit does not preach or practice radical politics and has been staying away from controversial statements and posturing.
In the rest of Punjab, it was the Congress, the AAP and the Akalis, which won 7, 3 and 1 parliamentary constituencies respectively. Even in Tarn Taran and Faridkot more people voted against Amritpal and Sarbjit and they won only because of multiple division of votes.
Bittu may have wanted to get even with the Akalis, but he has posed a moral dilemma for them (the Akalis) about their positioning on such issues. At the same time, it may not be very easy for them to take a clear position on such a sensitive matter.
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