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Badals slip on Anandpur Sahib
Resolution
Father-son duo hold on to Resolution for five days, then fall flat
before the BJP
Gian Inder Singh
 CHANDIGARH:
Having shunned all pretensions to a principled politics, and finding
panthic issues as a burden that repeatedly comes back to
haunt the ruling House of Badals, the father-son duo of Parkash and
Sukhbir Singh Badal spent the last week wrestling with the Anandpur
Sahib Resolution, first claiming their commitment to the document
and then saying they will make the saffron BJP understand it, before
making the final capitulation on Tuesday. Now, they say they will
not mention the Resolution anymore.
Poor novice at
panthic affairs and still learning the crooked ways perfected by
father CM, Punjab’s Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal
slipped easily on a seemingly innocuous query of a journalist last
week and said the Akali Dal was very much committed to the Anandpur
Sahib Resolution and that it demanded better rights for the states
vis-ŕ-vis the Centre.
As BJP fumed and
saffron ministers openly said they found the Anandpur Sahib
Resolution separatist, the Congress too jumped into the act. Former
Chief Ministers Amarinder Singh and Rajinder Kaur Bhattal both
issued statements that it was a separatist document. Such remarks
found resonance in BJP statements too.
The Akalis,
instead of politely reminding the alliance partner and the
opposition that the Resolution was referred to the Sarkaria
Commission by none other than Rajiv Gandhi, started fumbling.
Sukhbir said
perhaps the BJP could not see the Resolution in proper spirit and
that the Akali Dal will make its NDA partner understand it in a
proper perspective, Parkash Singh Badal also tried to wriggle out by
saying Anandpur Sahib Resolution only spoke of autonomy to states.
But by Saturday,
Sukhbir, now Akali Dal president but clearly a greenhorn in the
panthic domain, found to his chagrin that the Anandpur Sahib
Resolution had more than one version and there was much that he did
not understand about the document himself, forget about making the
BJP understand it.
When he went for
a press conference in Jalandhar on Satruday, reporters were ready
with piercing queries: Anandpur Sahib Resolution demands
nationalisation of industries with more than Rs 1 crore turn over.
What is the Akali stand on it? The Resolution wants nationalisation
of the transport sector in
Punjab. So is
Sukhbir ready for nationalisation of Orbit bus company that his
family runs in Punjab? The Resolution wants New Delhi to make
wearing of kirpan mandatory for Sikh armymen in the Indian Army. So
why has Badal Sahib not ensured that at least the Sikhs in his
personal security detail at least keep beards and wear a kirpan? Why
has then kirpan not been made mandatory in Punjab Police?
If Anandpur
Sahib resolution proposed to keep the power and wealth out of the
grip of capitalists, how come the SAD-BJP model of development was
totally moving along a different agenda of neo-liberal capitalist
economy?
As Sukhbir
fumbled, hawed and hee-hawed, one journalist fired a question that
had him trumped completely?
“Which version
of Anandpur Sahib Resolution do you commit to, the 1973 version or
the 1978 one?” asked a rather bright journalist, clearly clutching
copies of various versions of the document in hand.
Poor Sukhbir had
not known from
Adams that there
was some quibbling over the versions too. “Ok, enough, I am leaving
the press conference,” he got up with a huff and then agreed to
continue with the press conference only after the reporters promised
not to ask any more questions about Anandpur Sahib Resolution.
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Badal woman
to fight from Bathinda
 Punjab
polity hurtles along towards the elections and both the Congress
and the Akali Dal-BJP combine are currently busy resolving the
riddles along the way.
After a long
time,
Punjab’s
people saw former CM Amarinder Singh and Congress leader
Rajinder Kaur Bhattal together on one stage in Nurmahal even as
Congress continues to struggle with the selection of candidates.
Bhattal is likely candidate from Sangrur,
 Amarinder
wants
Bathinda seat for son Raninder while Ambika Soni will fight the
Anandpur Sahib seat.
Experts believe that the Akali Dal has deliberately fielded
weakling Daljit Singh Cheema from Anandpur Sahib in order to
make Soni’s win sure under a secret pact with the Congress. In
lieu, the party high command may help the Badals in Bathinda
from where either Sukhbir Badal’s wife Harsimrat Kaur (never
tired of saying she has nothing to do withg politics and was
committed to social work) or elder Badal’s wife Surinder Kaur
(never tired of saying all her efforts were religious and she
only wants to do langar sewa) will be fighting.
Akali Dal is
still to make its mind clear on
Ludhiana
seat but it is not going to the BJP. Congress’ Manish Tewari is
set to fight from Ludhiana. Navjot Sidhu, it is reliably learnt,
will definitely be fighting from Amritsar seat |
Next day’s
newspapers dutifully carried news about how Sukhbir stayed back at
the conference after assurances that he will not be asked about the
Resolution.
By Monday,
journalists elsewhere sharpened their queries, and it was the turn
of Parkash Singh Badal himself, an absconder from every panthic
battle imaginable and who has perfected the art of crawling out of a
difficult situation with shrewdness, silence or obfuscation.
This time he was
candid. And how? He simply refused to answer queries on a subject
which was so dear to his heart a few years back that he had sent
many young ones of others to jails and death fighting for the
Anandpur Sahib Resolution.
Asked about
BJP’s stance that the Anandpur Sahib Resolution was separatist in
nature, Badal instead asked the media not to ask him any more
questions on the issue, said the media corps was generating
unnecessary controversy and then laid it out thick: “I will not
discuss this matter and you should not pose any questions to me.”
The old man is
losing his touch with the art of obfuscation.
Instead, he was
quick to underline that there was no friction “between the Akali Dal
and the BP over this or any other issue.” How could there be
friction if the Akali Dal is ready to dump the issue at the asking
of minions like Balbir Punj or Manoranjan Kalia.
BJP’s
Punjab
in-charge, Balbir Punj, was clear: “Our stand is same as was in the
past. Akalis may support the resolution, but we are against it.”
On Tuesday, the
father-son Badals duo, Punj, Manoranjan Kalia, Navjot Sidhu and
Bikram Majithia closetted in a room in Amritsar and then came out
with a joint decision: The Akali Dal will not even refer to the
Anandpur Sahib Resolution.
So much for the
impact and legacy of Dharam Yudh Morchas, the Sikh aspirational
struggle and the inheritance of pain and unkempt promises.
4
February 2009 |
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