Akali Dal’s focus is to bring development back on track in Punjab: Harsimrat Kaur Badal

Former Union Minister is confident her party will win after parting ways with BJP.

As the century-old Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) campaigns intensely across Punjab ahead of the Assembly election, due in early 2022, with the aim of usurping the Congress and forming the next government in the border State, former Union Cabinet Minister and senior SAD leader Harsimrat Kaur Badal, in an exclusive interview, asserts that the phenomenal response to Akali Dal rallies across the State indicates that the party is all set to form the next government in Punjab.

What are the key issues of focus on which SAD is fighting the 2022 Assembly poll? And what’s your strategy?

For the SAD, the issue has remained the same in every election, which is peace and prosperity, communal harmony, development of Punjab and the welfare of every segment. That is what we had delivered in the 10 years of our governance. In the last five years, Punjab has gone down on every parameter — be it education, health, jobs, social welfare sector or overall development.

This is why every segment of society is out on the streets today demanding justice and delivery of promises from the Congress government. Also, in the last one year of farmers’ agitation, Punjab has suffered huge setbacks. To fight a battle of the kind the farmers did, it came with its own cost — be it economically, financially or even communal harmony in Punjab. All these things have been a setback for Punjab and the most unfortunate part was that the ruling Congress party, which should have been at the forefront, fighting for the battle of people, left the people to fight on their own.

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The Akali Dal’s first and foremost focus is to bring development back on track in Punjab. Development work has come to a complete standstill in the State. The Congress has been busy looting the State exchequer. Be it transfers, jobs, sand, liquor, drugs, or even children’s scholarship, there’s total loot going on in the name of governance in Punjab. To bring Punjab back on track so that the economy stands on its feet, welfare schemes are put in place and the development and the progress start happening — this is what our agenda is.

How do you assess the current Congress government’s work in Punjab?

Forget about me commenting on that. The fact that the Congress party had to change its own Chief Minister [Amarinder Singh] because of misgovernance and non-delivery of the promised electoral promises goes to show that I don’t need to say anything, his own party has said it all. They think that by changing the CM and dumping everything on his head, they might be able to get away with their poor performance but the fact is that every segment of Punjab is opposing them because they have failed to deliver.

The Congress promised to waive the complete debt of all the farmers — including debt from commercial banks, cooperative societies, arhtiyas [commission agents] and other sources but after formation of the government, the Congress backed out of this promise. The government’s scheme has not benefited even 1% of the farmers. The Congress promised jobs to every household in the State, unemployment allowance of ₹2,500 to the youth, pension amount to be hiked from ₹500 to ₹2,500 — none of these promises has been fulfilled. They were supposed to give ghar ghar naukri but jobs were provided to family members and relatives of their MPs and MLAs and not the public. In fact, they snatched jobs and left people unemployed by shutting down the Bathinda thermal plant.

Between the Congress and the AAP, which is a greater challenge for the Akali Dal in the upcoming election?

The Congress is a challenge only for itself. So many factions within the Congress are fighting for space, so they don’t need anybody else to challenge them. As for the AAP, Mr. Arvind Kejriwal is dividing his time in every State of the country, wherever he gets an opportunity, because the people of the AAP in Punjab tell us that whoever gives the highest amount of money is the one who gets ticket.

A new kind of politics is at play in which you go and tell the people what they want to hear and you collect funds from NRIs, you collect from the candidates and even if you don’t get any MLAs, you at least get coffers filled, which is why a Chief Minister has the time to take off and run around to other States when all other Chief Ministers of the country are busy in their own State.

In Punjab, no one trusts the AAP. In the 2017 election, the AAP got 20 seats and, of those, 11 members have already joined the Congress. They have not been able to keep their flock together. How are they going to keep Punjab together? Also, the people of Punjab have questions for Mr. Kejriwal. Whatever he is promising in Punjab, why was the same not delivered in 10 years in Delhi? He always indulges in doublespeak. He says one thing in Punjab and the other in Delhi.

Whenever he comes to Punjab, he gives the impression of being pro-farmer but the moment he goes back to Delhi he works against their interests. We have seen this in the case of the Satluj Yamuna Link (SYL) canal issue. We have also witnessed how Mr. Kejriwal tried to force the closure of four private thermal plants in Punjab. And people here know that someone who doesn’t know our language, doesn’t know our culture, doesn’t know the names of our districts or our ‘gurus’ or even our rivers, what is he going to do for Punjab? He is another one who will just plunder and dope.

The SAD-BJP alliance in Punjab was seen as a symbol of Sikh-Hindu unity. How do you assess the political situation after the breaking up of the alliance?

The Akali Dal is getting a huge response in all constituencies where the BJP used to contest as an alliance partner. Recently, Sukhbir Singh Badal held a rally in Sujanjpur constituency in Pathnkot, which has been a BJP stronghold and a Hindu dominated seat — to our surprise, there was phenomenal response to the Akali Dal rally. The rousing reception indicates that the people of the constituency have been given a fresh lease of life by getting rid of the BJP.

The rousing welcome that the Akali Dal is getting in the BJP-dominated constituencies makes it evident that the community has understood that the BJP is going to be a non-starter in Punjab. People are realising, especially the Hindu community, that for peace and security, the Akali Dal’s formula of keeping everybody together is the way to go forward and this is why Sukhbir Singh Badal is getting such a rousing welcome. I am sure we are going to win with an even better mandate as we have shed the baggage [in alliance with BJP] that we had.

The SAD parted ways with the BJP on farm laws; now that the laws have been repealed, is there any possibility of the two coming together before or after the election?

The SAD has stood with the BJP through thick and thin when it used to have two MPs and Akali Dal had, like, 13. We stood with them because Punjab is a border State and it was important to make Hindu brothers feel secure here. But the treatment that we got and the repercussions of those laws in the last one-and-a-half years — what it has done to the social fabric of Punjab, what it has done economically and financially to Punjab, I think those wounds are going to take a very long time to heal.

It all depends on the kinds of efforts that are made by the Central government. Otherwise, as things stand today, it’s out of the question for Akali Dal to go back to a party that talks about ‘Sabka Saath’ but does not even take along its own allies or farmers.

The SAD initially supported the farm laws but later decided to alter its stance. The Opposition accuses you of changing your stance after facing a backlash from farmers to save your ‘vote bank’. What’s your take? And do you think the farm law issue will be a key issue in the election?

It’s total rubbish. I cannot make the minutes of the Cabinet meeting public because I don’t have access to it. In the BJP-dominated Cabinet, if any of them have the guts to tell the truth, they will all tell what happened and what transpired and how many times what I said and did to raise farmers’ concerns.

I repeatedly asked them [the Centre] to address farmers’ concerns. I was told again and again that the issues of farmers will be addressed, and I had no reason to distrust them. Why would I distrust my alliance? But when the farmer came to us with the issues, we strongly raised their concerns with the government.. I told the BJP that there’s going to be fire on the ground if laws are passed. To answer all those people who ask why I did not resign earlier… I did not resign earlier because we [SAD] were told that before the farm Bills become law all the concerns will be addressed.

Obviously, my duty was to stay inside and try and have those issues addressed instead of just throwing in my weapons and running off. If 700 farmers had died and the laws were not repealed, despite a year-long nationwide agitation, it clearly showed the BJP had no intention. It was the Akali Dal that made it [farm laws] a national issue. The country woke up to the farm laws issue after I quit as Union Minister. Two days after my resignation, it became such a big issue that 18 political parties opposed the laws. The farm laws would of course be an issue. It’s going to be an issue and the kind of wounds that have been inflicted are not going to be forgotten in the next two months.

What’s your take on the impact of the newly formed Punjab Lok Congress led by Amarinder Singh and its alliance with the BJP in the upcoming poll?

I think the undercover agents have been exposed. We all know that in the 2017 Assembly poll, the BJP transferred its votes to Amarinder Singh, and he spoke the Centre’s language. No Chief Minister in the right mind would have let the farm Bills be imposed on Punjab. Besides, it was clear with whose blessing Sukhdev Dhindsa and others worked to split the Akali Dal and everything has come out very clearly for the people to see. What does Amarinder Singh have to offer Punjab? People have seen four years of his misgovernance. His own party threw him out and declared him a failure.

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