Second and third Badal governments

Who: Parkash Singh Badal, chief minister for two terms in a row (2007 to 2017), leading the Shiromani Akali Dal and BJP alliance; his son Sukhbir Singh Badal, who became party president; and Avtar Singh Makkar, president of the SGPC.

What: In 2007 the SAD won 48 seats and the BJP 19, against 44 for Congress, which polled the higher vote share (40.90 percent to the SAD's 37.09). In 2012 the SAD won 56 and the BJP 12, against 46 for Congress, again ahead on vote share (40.09 percent to 34.73). The SGPC's own list shows Makkar as president from November 23, 2005, to November 4, 2016, so the same SGPC president served almost the whole of the two Badal governments.

In 2011 Badal received the title Fakhr-e-Qaum, which the Akal Takht withdrew in December 2024. In 2015 the five Takht heads pardoned Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim, then reversed course. On November 10, 2015, a Sarbat Khalsa at Chabba, which the SGPC refused to host and Makkar called void, passed resolutions against the Takht heads, who it alleged functioned under the influence of the SAD (Badal) government. On December 2, 2024, the Akal Takht pronounced religious punishment on Sukhbir Badal and other Akali leaders for the mistakes of the 2007 to 2017 government. Jathedar Giani Raghbir Singh said Sukhbir admitted calling the jathedars of the time to his residence, in the presence of Parkash Singh Badal, to seek the pardon, and that the jathedars granted it. Money spent on SGPC advertisements defending the pardon, reportedly Rs 90 lakh, was ordered recovered.

Where: Punjab, with the government at Chandigarh and the SGPC and Sri Akal Takht Sahib at Amritsar.

Why it mattered: Critics at Chabba accused the Takht heads of acting under that government's influence, and in 2024 the Akal Takht itself recorded Sukhbir Badal's admission that he called the jathedars to his home about the pardon. The government's last years brought the 2015 Beadbi incidents, the Behbal Kalan police firing and the pardon, and the SAD won only 15 seats in 2017.