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Badal’s Family Planning Operation Successful
Gian Inder Singh
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Father and Son:
All In The Family |
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These are the
times for people to recall that they once had a dream. These are the
times to realize the dreams.
Parkash Singh
Badal also had a dream. For many years, he has dreamed of this
Family Planning project.
“Hum Do, Hamara
Sab Kuchh”.
That dream is
being fulfilled.
Punjab Chief
Minister Badal who has lorded over the ruling Akali Dal for many
years now and overseen its transformation from a party wedded to the
cause of welfare of the Sikhs to a secularized power-gamed political
party in an alliance with a right-wing Hindutva espousing communal
force like the RSS-BJP, had been trying to pass on the power-baton
to son Sukhbir Singh Badal for many years now.
At around 1:30
in the afternoon, Sukhbir was sworn in as Deputy Chief
Minister of Punjab by the Governor of Punjab at Amritsar amidst
thousands of party people and virtually the entire leadership of the
party. The Indian Constitution has no provision for a Deputy CM, a
post often created and designated through a notification as a matter
of political convenience. But then nothing much in
India or within
the Akali Dal gets impacted by any Constitutional niceties.
 Years earlier,
after Sukhbir had returned from abroad, having spent the years in
the West when Punjab was going through the dark times and Sikh aspirational struggle was squelched under security personnel’s boots
and killed in fake encounters, he was made an MP and then a Union
Minister.
It mattered
little that he could make no claim to being an illustrious minister.
Papa CM was always there to make him the party general secretary,
and repeatedly an MP. That he was a completely ineffective MP must
not be held against it. Name an effective Akali Dal MP? In recent
times, as he gained more experience, and Badal Sr.’s hair got more
silver, the time for generational shift seemed to be coming near.
“If a doctor can make his son a doctor, why can’t a politician make
his son a politician?” Badal’s logic had a certain earthiness and no
one could dispute that.
But Badal was
also shrewd enough not to put it as it was: “Why can’t a CM make his
son a CM?” But he sure went about it. He is still on the job.
Candidly, this time he has declared his intentions too.
A
grand edifice of an achiever was created around Sukhbir during the
last Assembly elections. Huge hoardings, extensive advertising and
minions’ statements claimed that but for Sukhbir, Amarinder Singh
would have returned to power. Sukhbir-as-messiah was a line senior
Akalis gulped, most with a dose of humbled pride and some with ample
helpings of humiliation thrown in. There was little time to recall
that the late taksali leader Gurcharan Singh Tohra had actually been
thrown out of the party in the 1998-99 turf war for underlining that
all that the Badal wanted was to make Sukhbir the CM.
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Parkash Singh
Badal has now openly said that when the time comes, Sukhbir will
also be the Chief Minister. That was a bombshell for the senior
Akali Dal leadership. It is a broad and open challenge to the
likes of Brahampuras, Dhindsas, Kanwaljits and everyone else.
But can they really do anything about it? They too have a dream.
A dream of their own. They are all Family Planners themselves. |
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Kaka Ji was to
become the Acting President of the Akali Dal, then virtually the
supremo of both, the party and the government, though
extra-Constitutional, and then the President. As for the minor
irritants like not being even an Amritdhari, one fine morning he
removed that hiccup too though he preferred that it should not get
too publicized.
After all,
religion is a private matter these days for a party that calls
itself “Akali”, sorry, “Shiromani Akali”, unless of course you
invite the Badals to some Namdhari dera or Mata Jagrata or Lord
Parshuram Temple in the company of some rank secularists like
Narendra Modi.
Oh yes, Badal
did call him too, the Narendra Modi of
Gujarat. Or
should we say the Modi of Godhra?
But let’s stay
with the story chronologically.
At a meeting of
the Core Committee of the Akali Dal (this sham of a panel was also
soon to be exposed; after all, can there be a Core outside the
Badal’s kitchen of CM-Sukhbir-Harsimrat-Surinder Kaur?), some
proactive members of the now famous Haraya Akali Dal (Losers’ party)
like Tota Singh and Gurdev Singh Badal, Balwinder Singh Bhunder and
Sewa Singh Sekhwan dug their heels in. They said they simply cannot
do without a Deputy Chief Minister now, and Sukhbir Singh Badal has
to be made the Deputy CM since the government and the party needs
him so desperately. No, they would not take NO for an answer, and
Sukhbir cannot be kept waiting. He was so essential now. In fact, so
important was it for them to raise the demand last Wednesday at the
late evening meeting at where else but Badal’s residence that they
were brought there in a helicopter from Takhtoopura in southern
Punjab.
Poor Badal Sahib
had little choice but to agree. Reluctantly, did any one say? By
next morning, Badal Sr. was in his elements. “Come what may, the
party has decided and that decision will not be changed,” he
thundered after men like hitherto virtual Deputy CM but actually
only Cabinet minister Manoranjan Kalia and BJP state chief Rajendra
Bhandari squeaked. The squeaking, however, soon became murmur and
then a sort of rebellion.
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Badal is fond
of saying: "Jo Kardi Hai Ji, Saadi Party Hee Kardi Hai. Main
Kujhh Nahi Karda." What a Family Planning Party! |
Punjab BJP
leaders rushed to Delhi to complain that the Badals have broken
coalition dharma, that a junior alliance partner was not taken into
confidence, that coalitions normally had Deputy CM-ship for minor
partner, that BJP support was crucial to Akali Dal government, that
BJP had itself dropped the Number 2 demand, and that the party must
not be seen as propagating or encouraging parivarwaad.
But since when
have proponents of power politics been dissuaded by calls to Dharma?
Those who can drag in Lord Ram and raze holy mosques to ground to
build upon it a government of the Right, not the righteous, were
quick to lay it thick: “Stay silent. We have cleared it all.”
But the worse
was yet to come. Both, for the BJP as well as for the Akali Dal. All
said and done, BJP president Rajnath Singh is a bit of a candid man.
With one statement, delivered on prime time TV and repeated ad
nauseum to whoever was willing to hear it again, Rajnath Singh
spilled the beans that shamed saffron as well as the Family
Planners. “Both Parkash Singh Badal and Sukhbir had come to
Delhi some 15
days ago and they had met me and L K Advani ji and we both have
cleared the move. They wanted to make Sukhbir the Deputy CM and we
said we have no objection.”
Poor Badals must
have forgotten to tell Rajnath that the visit was to be kept secret.
Secret from the people because they were to enact a drama of Akali
minions raising the demand in Core Committee. Secret because the
Punjab BJP was not to be told beforehand as Rajendra Bhandari is not
someone who would gulp parivarwaad. What Rajnath Singh did not say
was why did he allowed the Akalis to humiliate the state BJP for a
good three days before exposing the Badals?
A grateful Badal
invited Rajnath Singh, L K Advani, Arun Jaitley, and, please do not
be surprised, Narendra Modi to come and witness the ceremony. His
son was being crowned as Deputy Chief Minister at a massive
public-rally style swearing-in ceremony in
Amritsar. Some
made it; for others, there will soon be another occasion.
After all, this
time the demand may come from none other than the Father Family
Planner. He has already dropped a broad hint, and more than four
times in the last week. “Let the time come, Sukhbir will also become
the Chief Minister. Just as the crop takes time to ripen, he too is
maturing for larger responsibilities.”
The hint was
dropped as a bombshell for any senior Akalis, and is a broad and
open challenge to the likes of Brahampura, Dhindsas, Kanwaljits and
everyone else.
But can they
really do anything about it? They too have a dream. A dream of their
own. They are all Family Planners themselves.
So when the next
coronation comes, be prepared to read the predictable. Tomorrow’s
News Today: Parkash Singh Badal makes sacrifice for the Akali Dal,
says he will let Sukhbir take over as CM. But only because the party
has insisted so hard.
“Jo Kardi Hai Ji,
Saadi Party Hee Kardi Hai. Main Kujhh Nahi Karda.”
Family
Planning Party, of course.
21 January 2009
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