LUDHIANA: Traditional Akali leader Parkash Singh Badal is reported to be working on a new, pro-India political alliance in Punjab which, if the plan fructified, will find means to replace the present minority Beant Singh-led Congress (I) government in the stale,

The author of the scheme is said to be the redoubtable Communist leader, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, who earlier unsuccessfully tried his hand at a similar venture under Surjeet Singh Barnala’s leadership.

Surjeet is general secretary of India’s influential but geographically limited Communist Pany (Marxist). Although he lost his already thin mass base in Punjab to his traditional rival in the party, Jagjit Singh Lyallpur, who successfully floated a new organization called Marxist Forum, Surjeet has managed to reach at the top of the party’s ladder. His detractors say that he is merely a rubber stamp of west Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu and provides a missing link between the Marxist party and the prime ministers house.

Whatever the C.P.(M) general secretary’s antecedents, there is no doubt that Parkash Singh Badal is in search of a man like Surjeet who could work as a broker between the central Indian government and the Akali Dal to pull Punjab out of its present imbroglio, For the traditional Akali Dal leader, what matters is the question of chief minister ship and Surjeet is said to be willing to help Badal with the prized post.

The game-plan is that Badal will head a new political alliance comprising, apart from the Badal Akali Dal, the C.P.I,, the C.P.(M) and the Akali Dal (Longowal). This alliance will have tacit support from the BJ.P.

It is presumably to pave the way for the plan to make progress that Badal has nearly said goodbye to the so-called combine of half a dozen Akali Dal and student federation groups. The former chief minister’s men made it a point to give a final blow to the Akali unity plans by beating up those who protested against Badal holding his won public meeting instead of a joint conference with other groups.

Badal is said to be getting all encouragement from the Indian government authorities. They have made available the services of more than 100 armed men of India’s security forces to guard the former chief minister from possible attacks by pro-Khalistan militants. The Mann Akali group publicly accused the former chief minister of getting help from Delhi.

The Badal Akali Dal is currently busy mobilizing the public to hold a rally in Delhi to prove his ability to mark a break with other Akali groups and to strike a deal with Delhi. Since the Akali Leader is shrewed enough to know the Sikh psyche, he is raising the demand for the release of Bhai Jinda and Sukha from jail. Incidentally, Badal is quietly moving to the opposite direction from the one indicated by the wo militant leaders lodged in Pune jail who in an interview asked Akalis to lend support to Bhai Daljit Singh’s efforts to build a broad Panthic unity around the demand for Khalistan.

The Delhi rally to be held on Oct.12 will be the beginning of the formation of the new alliance. He will be backed by his pro-B.J.P. supporters in Delhi on that day. Badal will also possibly hold talks with B.J.P. leaders.

According to the scheme of things being worked out, chief minister Beant Singh will resign sometime early next year to pave the way for new elections in Punjab. He will be made one of the office bearers of the All India Congress Committee or even a central minister. Punjab will be entrusted to Badal as its chief minister. Surjeet Singh Barnala will be sent out as governor of one of the states.

In this game-plan, Indian President Shankar Dayal Sharma is also ready to give a helping hand because he happens to be the former law teacher of Barnala, Already Barnala’s man, Balwant Singh Ramoowalia, has been made a member of the Indian minorities commission, a ceremonial organization which nevertheless provides good perquisites to its members.

Article extracted from this publication >> October 16, 1992