Sons and Brothers

Punjab elections of the recent past have been the usual Patiala Royals-versus-Badals clash. This time, there is intra-clan rivalry on display as well

In Punjab, the son always rises. Often leaving brothers pitted against one another. Punjab Congress chief and Patiala royal Amarinder Singh’s younger brother Malwinder Singh recently quit the Congress and joined the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). Malwinder Singh was miffed at being denied an Assembly ticket for the third time in a row. The party preferred his nephew and Amarinder Singh’s son Raninder for the Samana Assembly seat over him.

That Raninder had lost the Bathinda Lok Sabha contest to SAD chief Sukhbir Badal’s wife Harsimrat Kaur in 2009, did not get in the way of the party deciding in his favour. Interestingly, Amarinder Singh, who ruled the state from 2002 to 2007 before the Badals’ return to power, had capitalised on a strong anti-incumbency wave against Badal’s previous term in power from 1997 to 2002. Raninder’s mother Preneet Kaur is the Congress MP from Patiala and also Minister of State for External Affairs at the Centre. It was no surprise then that when Malwinder Singh joined the SAD, Sukhbir Badal ushered him in with a broad smile for the cameras at a press conference to announce the development. That Malwinder resembles his elder brother a lot only added to the junior Badal’s smile. Amarinder, asked at a press conference, defended his brother’s decision to quit the party. “If you have to wait so long for a ticket, I think it’s justified,” he said in Chandigarh recently.

The senior Badal is currently Chief Minister, his son his deputy in the government and also party chief, and daughter-in-law an MP. In the clash of the clans—Badals-versus Patiala Royals—the former emerged trumps in 2009 when Raninder lost the Bathinda Lok Sabha contest to Harsimrat. The first-time MP has since been rather vocal in Parliament on issues concerning Punjab, Sikhs and the UPA’s corruption. But the royals got to rejoice in 2010 when another Badal—state Finance Minister Manpreet Badal—quit the government and party, speaking openly against mismanagement in the affairs of both. His outfit, the Punjab People’s Party, is now in the fray pitted against both the Congress and SAD, and attracting rebels from both sides. Interestingly, Manpreet’s father and the senior Badal’s younger brother Gurdas Singh Badal will now contest from Punjab’s Lambi Assembly constituency.

Badal village, from which the clan draws its surname, is located in Lambi, and while Parkash Singh busied himself with state politics—becoming Chief Minister four times—and coalition politics at the Centre for decades, he left it to Gurdas Singh to nurture the constituency in his absence. Till their sons started a succession battle within the clan, the brothers were united. Another cousin of the two elder Badals, Mahesh Inder Singh Badal, who is a neighbour of Parkash Singh, will contest the Lambi seat on a Congress ticket against the two brothers. In his case, the clash began with the previous generation. Mahesh Inder, whose father mentored the senior Badal, has been fighting elections from here for long. He has always held it against the brothers that despite his father’s contribution to the Chief Minister’s career, he was ignored politically. When Gurdas Singh parted ways with his elder brother Parkash Singh, abandoning decades of his legendary loyalty, the decision was announced at a press conference chaired by his son. He sat next to Manpreet while the latter fielded most of the questions. A young journalist, addressing her question to Gurdas Singh, wanted to know why he was going against his brother after so many years. The Chief Minister’s brother replied with a question of his own. “Do you have children?” he asked. The reporter replied that she did not. “Then,” he said, “you will not understand.”

Patiala RoyalsPunjabSukhbir Singh Badal