Parkash Singh Badal

Parkash Singh Badal was born on 8 December 1927 at Abul Khurana, near Malout, and studied at Forman Christian College, Lahore. He began in public life in 1947 as sarpanch of Badal village and was first elected to the Punjab assembly from Malout in 1957 as a Congress nominee. He won Gidderbaha on a Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) ticket in 1969 and in March 1970 became Chief Minister in his early forties, the youngest in the country at the time. He held the office five times: 1970 to 1971, 1977 to 1980, 1997 to 2002, 2007 to 2012 and 2012 to 2017.

In the morchas. The Tribune reports that he was arrested in 1982 while leading an agitation over the Sutlej Yamuna Link canal. On 27 February 1984 he and hundreds of Akali workers burnt a copy of a clause of Article 25 of the Constitution outside Gurdwara Bangla Sahib in Delhi, to press for a separate Sikh identity in the Constitution, and he was arrested. In 2002 Badal said he had done so under pressure from Sant Harchand Singh Longowal and had not favoured it. Dal Khalsa's Kanwarpal Singh replied that if so he was not fit to lead any party. That is Badal's own account, given eighteen years later.

Key moments

• 1992 to 1997: the SAD boycotts the 1992 assembly elections. Badal leads it to a comeback victory in 1997 in alliance with the BJP. The Tribune credits his close ties with Atal Bihari Vajpayee and says the government gave Punjab stability.
• 2007 to 2017: two consecutive terms, which the Tribune calls rare in Punjab.
• 2011 and 2015: the Akal Takht confers the title Panth Rattan Fakhr-e-Qaum on him in 2011, and on 10 November 2015 the Sarbat Khalsa at Chabba strips him of it. SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar answers that its resolutions are null and void.
• 2020: he returns the Padma Vibhushan he received in 2015, and the SAD breaks with the BJP over the farm laws.
• 24 February 2023: the SIT files its chargesheet in the Kotkapura firing case.
• 25 April 2023: he dies at Fortis Hospital, Mohali, aged 95.
• 2 December 2024: the Akal Takht withdraws the Fakhr-e-Qaum title.

The record of 2007 to 2017. The Tribune's obituary says his last term is remembered for the wrong reasons: a series of sacrilege incidents, the Behbal Kalan police firing, and the Akal Takht's reversal of a pardon for Dera Sacha Sauda head Gurmeet Ram Rahim. The SAD then lost in 2017 and 2022. On 2 December 2024 the five Singh Sahiban led by Jathedar Giani Raghbir Singh found the SAD leadership guilty of religious misconduct over the decisions of the 2007 to 2017 government, and withdrew the title after his death, giving as the reason that he was Chief Minister when the mistakes occurred. The Wire reports that Sukhbir Badal acknowledged in that session his role in securing the Dera pardon and his failure to punish those responsible for the Bargari sacrilege and the police involved in the Kotkapura and Behbal Kalan firings.

On 24 February 2023 the SIT filed a chargesheet in a Faridkot court. According to the Faridkot SSP, it says Badal facilitated the execution of the conspiracy, and it names Sukhbir Badal and former DGP Sumedh Singh Saini as the masterminds. These are police allegations, and the Tribune report carried no response from the Badals.

Death and assessment. He died on 25 April 2023 and the Union government declared two days of national mourning. The Tribune says even rival leaders recognised his stature as a statesman, and that he stood up for the rights of Sikhs and protested against the Congress government at the Centre in the years of turmoil.