The dismal performance of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in the recent by-poll for the Sangrur Lok Sabha seat in Punjab is yet another grim reminder of the crisis facing the party. The SAD came last in the four-cornered contest, polling fewer votes than the debutant Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). What is especially ominous for the party is the unexpected victory of the rival Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) president Simranjit Singh Mann, the first success for his party in any election since 1999. Given that the constituency falls in Malwa region, a stronghold of the SAD, the verdict is a re-affirmation of the shift of the party’s core social constituency of rural Sikhs to other parties such as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), and even to the rival Akali Dal in this case.
This comes after the SAD’s dismal results in the Punjab Assembly elections earlier this year, winning only three seats (in a House of 117) and securing 18.38% of the votes polled — compared to 15 seats and 25.24% of votes in the 2017 elections. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections too, the SAD did poorly, managing only two seats among the 13 constituencies in the State.
What explains the decline of a party, which until recently had shown great tenacity in retaining its organisational presence and core social constituency and remaining electorally relevant over its 100-plus years of existence in a State which is marked for electoral volatility, shifting party loyalties and many short-lived parties, not to mention the troubles of the 1980s and early 1990s when politics moved to an extra-constitutional space? The following factors may be considered in this regard.
