Chandigarh: It is said that sometimes politics develop in unanticipated ways and exactly the same happened during the 2022 Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) presidential elections. Last year SAD(B) picked up Harjinder Singh Dhami as its presidential candidate, presumably in consultation with, now defiant, Bibi Jagir Kaur who not only gave her consent on Dhami’s name but also proposed his name for the presidential candidate in the Teja Singh Samundari Hall. But a year after in the 2022 SGPC’s presidential elections Kaur challenged Dhami and sat with the opposition members.
Last year Harjinder Singh Dhami was elected as SGPC president and won 122 votes whereas his opponent candidate Mithu Singh Kahanke polled 19 votes.
During the recently concluded SGPC’s presidential elections, Dhami polled 104 votes whereas his opponent, Bibi Jagir Kaur polled 42 votes. A peep into the 2020 election reveals Bibi Jagir Kaur polled 122 votes and her opponent candidate polled 20 votes which means Kaur has been able to garner the support of almost double the number of opposition members as compared to 2020 and 2021 polls.
The political analysts are of the view that the 2022 SGPC’s presidential election results indicate at Kaur’s personal elevation as she had been successful in making a major dent SAD(B) camp by nearly doubling the number of opposition members in her favor.
Immediately after losing the elections to Dhami, she demanded from Center government hold the general elections of SGPC besides she also gave a call for the resuscitation of SAD and refused to accept Sukhbir Singh Badal as president of SAD. And for the first time, in the near past, SAD(B) will have a strong opposition candidate in the SGPC’s house.
Though she has lost in the number game being the four times former president of SGPC, Bibi Jagir Kaur knows the functioning of each and every department of SGPC and the institutions run by it and was likely to make ‘presidency’ difficult for SAD(B) candidate.
Under the present circumstances, the next general elections of SGPC are going to be an uphill task for the SAD(B) president whose party has already been pushed to the corner in the last assembly elections and Sukhvir Singh Badal’s own political acumen is questionable especially after several of its senior leaders chose to part ways under Sukhbir’s leadership.
