Analysis: Akali Dal's Battle To Reclaim Panthic Strongholds

Shiromani Akali Dal is trying to recover the Panthic strongholds it once dominated by reversing the dynastic style that drove senior leaders out. After years of Badal centralisation pushed nine senior party leaders out of which three have died.

The prominent leaders who had left the party include figures such as Balwinder Singh Bains and Simarjeet Singh Bains left in 2016 to form the Lok Insaaf Party. In December 2018, Ranjit Singh Brahmpura, Rattan Singh Ajnala and Sewa Singh Sekhwan co-founded the Shiromani Akali Dal (Taksali). In 2020, Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa and his son Parminder Singh Dhindsa revived the Shiromani Akali Dal (Democratic); the following year they merged it with Brahmpura's faction to create the Shiromani Akali Dal (Sanyukt).

Bibi Jagir Kaur was expelled in 2022 after contesting the SGPC presidential election against the official candidate and later aligned with rebel reform groups. In August 2025, former Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh became president of the rebel Shiromani Akali Dal (Punar Surjit). Of these nine, three have since died: Ranjit Singh Brahmpura, Sewa Singh Sekhwan and Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa.Only one of the nine is described as ready to return. Bibi Jagir Kaur announced in November 2026 that she would rejoin the Badal-led SAD. The remaining living leaders are still associated with the breakaway groups they helped create or now lead.

Akali Dal was now trying to bring back the same leaders back and reactivating the SGPC network. Their return is meant to rebuild local organisation and restore trust before 2027. What remains to be seen is whether the voters will treat the move as real change or a late cosmetic fix.

For more than a century, the party treated Sikh religious politics as its own ground. It spoke for the Panth, ran the SGPC network, and turned rural Punjab into a reliable electoral base. That claim no longer holds. The party is fighting an open battle for relevance. The numbers show how far the ground has shifted under it.

Between 2007 and 2012, the SAD-BJP alliance formed back-to-back governments. SAD's own vote share slipped by roughly 2.3 percentage points across those two elections, yet its seats rose from 48 to 56. The alliance held. In 2017, the fall began in earnest. After a decade of anti-incumbency, SAD's vote share dropped nearly 9.5 percentage points, and its seats collapsed from 56 to 15. It finished behind both Congress and the new Aam Aadmi Party. By 2022, having left the NDA over the farm laws and contested with the BSP, its vote share fell another 6.86 points to 18.38 per cent. The party won only three seats. In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the share fell further to 13.4 per cent, with Bathinda the sole win.

Source : ndtv.com