There is a common thread running among all the regional political parties across the country from Jammu and Kashmir in the north and Tamil Nadu in the south, that they are “family owned” and “family run”. Except for the National Conference in Jammu and Kashmir, no other political party has managed to survive till the third generation with the same strength and vigour.
The Indian National Congress has also turned into a family-controlled organisation and has moved to a record fifth generation. It must be a world record in itself that three generations have served as the prime ministers in a row, while the fourth is trying its luck.
Shiv Sena of Maharashtra, one of the influential regional political parties in the country, and the Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab have met the same fate, although they do not have similar origins. While Sena was founded by journalist/cartoonist-turned-politician Balasaheb ‘Bal’ Thackeray, the Shiromani Akali Dal was born out of a mass movement. Eventually, the Akali Dal ended up as a family-run organisation controlled by Parkash Singh Badal.
Till the recent past, both the parties were a force to reckon with in their respective states. However, both have almost completely disintegrated and decimated, and most likely due to the concentration of power within the family and that too within a single individual; specifically, the son-fixation and fascination.
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First, it was the Shiv Sena. Bal Thackeray had groomed his nephew Raj Thackeray, who was more robust, assertive, and articulate, as compared to his son Uddhav Thackeray. Raj presumed himself to be the “natural” successor to his uncle, the senior Thackeray. However, the grand old man had other ideas. When he bequeathed his political legacy to his own son, Uddhav, Raj revolted and rebelled against the family and formed the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS).
As the BJP-Shiv Sena remained out of power for a long time, the party barely managed its survival. Its high point was when it broke away from the BJP in 2019 and aligned with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party with Uddhav becoming the chief minister. Raj maintained his independent identity mostly with his aggressive campaign in support of the Marathi language.
After the Shiv Sena broke into two parts with a major chunk of MLAs walking away with Eknath Shinde who became the chief minister with BJP support, Uddhav was left alone.
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Efforts of rapprochement between the two estranged cousins started since then and were finally materialised recently when they shared the stage. But almost everything has been lost. The Shiv Sena-led by Uddhav is a pale shadow of its own past when his father Bal Thackeray led it. The party has now been reduced to mere 20 members in the Maharashtra house of 238, while the Shinde group has 57.
The Shiromani Akali Dal has met almost a similar fate under strikingly similar circumstances. The party was headed by the grand old man of the Punjab politics, Parkash Singh Badal, who was respected nationally across the political spectrum. His larger-than-life persona, eventually proved to be the undoing for the party and his family.
The senior Badal, like Bal Thackeray, had invested too much, politically, on his nephew Manpreet Singh Badal, as compared to his own son Sukhbir Singh Badal. Like the impression in the case of Thackerays that Raj will inherit the political legacy of his uncle, Manpreet thought and believed the same away. It also happened like that for some time. While Manpreet remained in Punjab, Sukhbir was elected MP and became a minister of state in the first short-lived Vajpayee government.
In the next General Elections, although the NDA returned to power at the Centre, Sukhbir lost from Faridkot. He started taking more interest in the state government and realised where the real power was. Everything moved smoothly. Then came the anti-corruption cases against him and his father by the Capt Amarinder Singh government in 2002. Sukhbir led from the front. Gradually, he started taking control of the party, which returned to power in 2007. The success was greatly attributed to Sukhbir’s managerial skills. The stage was being set for his taking over the reins, which should not have happened in a party like Akali Dal, that unlike the Shiv Sena, was not founded or formed by any individual.
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Within a few years, Manpreet started realising the limitations to the legacy that he thought he was to own. Despite being the finance minister in his uncle’s ministry, he felt like a disillusioned leader and eventually revolted like Raj Thackeray. Manpreet founded the People’s Party of Punjab ahead of the 2012 elections, which initially found a lot of traction among the Punjabis. His rallies witnessed huge gatherings. Current Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann also joined the party. But the party could not manage a single seat in 2012 Assembly elections, which saw the Akali-BJP government returning to power and his uncle becoming the chief minister for a record fifth time.
Manpreet, like Raj, spent about four years in political wilderness. While rapprochement with his uncle and cousin that time was out of question, he explored the options of joining the Aam Aadmi Party, which had already made deep inroads in Punjab by 2016. However, he eventually joined the Congress, which was unprecedented for an Akali, that too, a Badal. The same way, the Shiv Sena aligned with the Congress and the NCP in Maharashtra. Manpreet contested the 2017 Assembly elections on the Congress ticket and won. He became the finance minister in the Congress government as well. However, he parted ways with the Congress as well owing to differences with newly-appointed PCC president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring and joined the BJP. He continues to be with the BJP.
While the Thackeray cousins have finally reconciled and regrouped, the Badal cousins were almost on the verge of it last year in the aftermath of the 2024 General Elections, which led to the by-election in Gidderbaha Assembly constituency as its MLA Raja Warring was elected to the Parliament. The rapprochement didn’t work out. Sukhbir had thought of fielding Manpreet from here after re-inducting him into the party. Manpreet had represented Gidderbaha earlier four times as an Akali candidate.
Both the Shiv Sena-UBT and the Shiromani Akali Dal headed by Sukhbir Singh Badal are fighting the existential battle. While most of the Shiv Sena rank and file are with the other faction led by Eknath Shinde, the SAD’s fate is no different as most of its support base has eroded and gone with the ‘Sudhar Lehar’, the rebel group of the party.
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