Scrutinising the two brutal attacks on Shiromani Akali Dal chief and former Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal reveals that in both cases the attackers tried to deliver vigilante justice.
Meanwhile, the ruling AAP and Congress are trying to politicise these incidents, squarely blaming the Shiromani Akali Dal for failing to protect the religious interests of the people of Punjab despite calling itself a Panthic party. Every physical assault or controversy pulls the political discourse back to the sacrilege cases. its opponents consistently use the same incidents to keep the memory of those years alive While the party tries to convert the attacks into a source of sympathy among traditional voters. He later represented the Firozpur constituency. He has also been elected three times as MLA from the Jalalabad Assembly constituency.
The attacks on Badal also hint that the radical elements , who have now entered the election arena, want to keep the sacrilege issues alive so that the same can be exploited in the 2027 assembly elections. leaders from the ruling Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress framed the incident as the product of lingering public anger over the 2015 events While opposition leaders condemned the violence. This narrative tug-of-war explains why SAD continues to struggle to pivot away from 2015. Sukhbir entered electoral politics in the mid-1990s and was elected to the Lok Sabha three times from Faridkot in 1996, 1998 and 1999. During the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, he served as Union Minister of State for Industry between 1998 and 1999. Sukhbir Singh Badal became the president of the Shiromani Akali Dal in January 2008. However, in November 2024,he resigned as party chief after the Akal Takht declared him tankhaiya. The party’s working committee formally accepted the resignation in January 2025. Following the completion of his religious punishment, he returned to the post and was unanimously re-elected on 12 April 2025 at a general delegate meeting held at Teja Singh Samundri Hall in Amritsar. Badal also served two consecutive terms as Deputy Chief Minister from 2009 to 2017, holding key portfolios including Home Affairs and major infrastructure projects. Since 2008, he has remained chief of the Shiromani Akali Dal and the party’s principal strategist.
