Chandigarh, July 13
Pressure from various Sikh organisations, especially those that have a soft corner for either Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre, notwithstanding the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has no choice but to follow its alliance partner the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the July 22 motion of confidence in the Lok Sabha.
“True, Dr Manmohan Singh has as Prime Minister given the Sikh community a new identity the world over, but that cannot be reason enough to break our decades-long trusted political association with the BJP,” says a senior leader of the SAD maintaining that “party MPs would abide by the directions of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.”
Of late, there has been a considerable debate in Akali circles over bailing out the UPA government to allow the Prime Minister to complete a five-year term in office. Some Akali MPs even indicated supporting the motion of confidence before the SAD supremo Parkash Singh Badal reportedly cautioned them.
Sources reveal that the national leadership of the BJP has not taken such observations and comments made by some senior SAD leaders, including MPs, well. They reportedly conveyed their displeasure to Badal.
The BJP leadership maintains that such comments by Akali Dal leaders were detrimental to the interests of the SAD-BJP government in Punjab and would ensure general elections.
Some senior Akali leaders, including MPs, have, on the condition of anonymity, admitted that there was an initial view that supporting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would also have given the Sikh diaspora in the US an image of a friendly community for its open support to the nuclear deal.
Since the BJP-led NDA government has a clear stand on nuclear power, the view has been countered with references to Pokharan explosions undertaken during the previous Vajpayee government.
The Akalis have now been given to understand that the continuation of the present UPA government in office was not in the larger political interests of the NDA partners. “Inflation and price rise has been an issue that the NDA wants to use to the full by forcing general elections to be ordered several months before they are due. We do not want to lose this advantage,” has been the argument given to the NDA partners.
Further, the SAD-BJP alliance in Punjab has not been without problems. The local bodies and panchayat elections brought to surface the apparent rift between the political partners.
Senior Dal leaders now realise that defiance of the NDA on the issue of vote of confidence may not be in their interests, as it would leave the BJP the prudent choice of walking out of the alliance, thereby leading to a premature collapse of the state government.
