Chandigarh:
For a party whose politics has traditionally been dominated by veteran male leaders, the Shiromani Akali Dal is witnessing a striking change in its public face. Harsimrat Kaur Badal, the party’s lone Lok Sabha MP, is now leading its Punjab Bachao rally at a crucial moment, as the party prepares for the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections.
The shift has acquired a deeply personal dimension for Harsimrat. Days after witnessing the attack on her husband and SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal inside a gurdwara in Maharashtra’s Nanded, she has stepped up to lead the party’s political campaign while he recovers.
At the annual political conference held in memory of martyr Karnail Singh Isru at Isru village near Khanna, Harsimrat was visibly emotional. Speaking in a choked voice, she described those who attack a person inside a Guru Ghar (house of the Guru) as “Guru-dokhis” (anti-Guru) and cowards, adding that the attack would not silence Sukhbir Badal.
She told party workers that Sukhbir Badal had sent her to attend the event and expressed confidence that he would return stronger. “This is the fight for Punjab,” she said, asserting that neither the attack nor attempts to intimidate the Akali leadership would weaken the party.
The symbolism of Harsimrat taking charge at this juncture is significant. The Akali Dal’s political history has been shaped by towering male figures, from Master Tara Singh and Sant Fateh Singh to Parkash Singh Badal, while Sukhbir Badal himself has dominated the party’s contemporary politics. Harsimrat, however, has steadily built a political identity of her own, particularly at the national level.
Crucial Victory
Her most defining moment came in 2020, when she resigned from the Union Cabinet over the contentious farm laws. She subsequently retained her Bathinda Lok Sabha seat in the 2024 general elections.
That victory became particularly important for a party facing one of the toughest phases in its history. The SAD suffered a major setback in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, winning just the Bathinda seat out of Punjab’s 13.
Now, as the party attempts to rebuild ahead of the 2027 polls, Harsimrat is increasingly becoming a visible bridge between the traditional Akali political establishment and a new campaign narrative centred on Punjab, the panth (Sikh community) and the party’s survival.
Her speech at Isru also sought to turn the attack on Sukhbir into a political message. Referring to August 15, she called for “freedom” from what she described as “Guru-dokhis”, drugs, debt, false promises and “fake advertisements” of the AAP government.
