Badal, the great survivor

JALANDHAR: From a sarpanch to five-time chief minister of Punjab, SAD patriarch Parkash Singh Badal, who has been selected for the Padma award on Sunday, has always showed his political acumen during the tough times and survived many a hurdle in his career.
Badal started his career from ground level as sarpanch of his village over 60 years ago and four years later he was elected first-time MLA on Congress ticket.
However, thereafter he positioned himself as an anti-Congress leader and kept his political plank so always.
Badal has been the only politician who has been conferred titles both by the Akal Takht, the highest temporal seat of Sikhs, and the Central government. He was given 'Panth Ratan Fakhr-e-Qaum' (Jewel of the Panth Pride of the Community) award by the Akal Takht in December 2011 and now the Padma honour came from Modi government.
He proved to be a great survivor and is today the oldest serving CM in the country. The astute politician that he is, it is believed in political circles that none knows better than Badal to read people's pulse. This ability was visible in all his political moves at different times - from burning copies of Article 25B of the Constitution in 1984, demanding right of self-determination to Sikhs and UN intervention in Punjab, to be the most moderate leader of Sikhs and Punjab and most trusted ally of BJP.
He got the chance to become the chief minister for the first time following the clash of titans in Shiromani Akali Dal in 1970. He was a Union minister briefly in the Morarji Desai-led government in 1977 but then returned to Punjab and became the CM again and headed yet again a coalition government of SAD and Janata Party. Both his first and second governments were succeeded by President's rule in Punjab.
For many, his political career was in the oblivion by the end of 1980s and the early 1990s. But, he staged a comeback in mid-1990s.
In his earlier two stints as CM, he faced problems more from within the party than outside. In his third stint as Punjab CM, which started in 1997, he politically finished almost all the dissenters within SAD during which BJP provided the required stability to his government. His biggest rival later was Gurcharan Singh Tohra, who, when cornered in 1999, formed a separate party and defeated Badal-led SAD in 2002.
For the past 15 years, Badal has remained in complete control of SAD and SGPC -- also called the mini parliament of Sikhs -- and Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC).
Interestingly, if BJP leaders like AB Vajpayee and L K Advani were his contemporaries and he enjoyed a great personal rapport with them, Badal now appears equally at ease with leaders who are much younger to him. There are quite a few political families in Punjab with whose two, or even three, generations he has worked with. Current PPCC chief Partap Singh Bajwa's father Satnam Singh was a minister in Badal's first government.