Chandigarh: In the Punjab poll season, the Akali Dal appears to be batting on the front foot on the sacrilege issue. Party MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal has once again publicly apologised for the beadbi (sacrilege) incidents during the previous SAD-BJP government, while simultaneously taking aims at the Aam Aadmi Party and Congress on the issue.
She was addressing a political conference in Sangrur to mark the death anniversary of Akali Dal stalwart Sant Harchand Singh Longowal.
“Unfortunately, one incident of beadbi happened during our tenure and we are very sorry for it,” Harsimrat Kaur said, while asserting that the Akalis had vowed not to rest until the perpetrators were punished.
The contrast with the Bhagwant Mann government today is striking. More importantly, when the Badal government was in power and the sacrilege controversy erupted, the Akalis faced intense public anger and sustained protests across Punjab. For months, the party leadership struggled to hold public meetings as the political backlash became a defining feature of the crisis. Despite the continuing controversy around ‘sacrilege’ and the video case involving the chief minister, Bhagwant Mann continues to hold public meetings and political programmes. There has been no comparable wave of public outrage against the government. Even the Haryana Police has so far made no visible breakthrough in the video case involving Mann. For the Akalis, this is a calculated attempt to reclaim an issue that has hurt the party’s political fortunes. The larger question is whether Punjab’s voters will buy the argument. ‘Sacrilege’ remains an intensely emotional issue, and the Akalis continue to carry the political baggage of the incidents that occurred during their rule. But by apologising again and putting AAP’s record under the scanner, the party is clearly betting that voters may now be willing to judge all governments by the same yardstick.
Because ‘sacrilege’ was one of the biggest political wounds for the Akalis, the move is significant. The issue contributed heavily to their rout in the 2017 Assembly elections. The party lost power in 2017 and failed to recover in 2022. But with 2027 approaching, Harsimrat Kaur’s renewed apology suggests that the Akalis believe the political conversation may now be shifted from their past record to the performance and promises of successive governments.
That difference could be central to the Akalis’ new strategy. Instead of remaining permanently defensive over the ‘sacrilege’ issue, Harsimrat Kaur is attempting to turn the question around: if the Akalis are expected to answer for what happened during their tenure, why should AAP and Congress not be held accountable for what has happened under their watch?
