LS polls: At 91, Parkash Singh Badal is not completely away from action

The Shiromani Akali Dal often likes to describe Parkash Singh Badal as the "Nelson Mandela of India", given that he has been in and out of jail many times in his long political career. The party also takes pride in the fact that he is the oldest politician in the country, next only to BJP veteran, Lal Kishan Advani, who is exactly a month older to Badal. 

At 91, the former Punjab chief minister and senior leader of the SAD has never said he will not contest this or the next election. Two years ago, he lost his chief ministership to Capt Amarinder Singh of the Congress, but retained his Lambi seat in the Vidhan Sabha for the fifth consecutive time. The party that is almost synonymous with him has yet to decide who will contest from a couple of seats crucial to the family—Ferozepur in which falls party president and former deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badad'a assembly constituency of  Jalalabad, and Bhatinda parliamentary constituency now represented by the Badal bahu and Union minister for food processing industry, Harsimrat  Badal.

Sher Singh Ghubaya, the SAD MP from Ferozepur won the seat twice. He joined the Congress end March. While the party has reportedly promised to give him the ticket for the constituency, this crossing over has left the SAD, many of whose old timers have left the party, in a quandary. Sources have suggested that if necessary, the Panthic party would even consider fielding the former chief minister from either of these seats. The calculations are that with not even the major opposition in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha, it will not make a difference to the party to lose one seat in the assembly, in order to gain one in the Lok Sabha. The SAD will have one or even two ministers in the Union cabinet should the BJP led NDA return to form government.  

Senior Badal has, however, been slowly visiting two villages a day. He has been generally talking about the need to ensure that Prime Minister Narendra Modi gets a second term. But when asked about his own role, the old war horse replies that he will do whatever his party wants him to.

The SAD is contesting 10 of the 13 parliamentary constituencies  in the state, leaving the other three to the Bharatiya Janata Party. The SAD has named the candidates for five of the ten constituencies. Along with the Shiv Sena, the SAD has been the most steady partner of the BJP. In Punjab, the arithmetic is simple: while the BJP gets urban constituencies, the SAD gets the Sikh dominated others.