- Saturday, March 01, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Leaders from across India’s political spectrum on Thursday (27) paid their last respects to Parkash Singh Badal, a five-time chief minister of the northern state of Punjab and one of the stalwarts of the state politics, who passed away on Tuesday (25) at the age of 95.
JP Nadda, president of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP); Sharad Pawar, chief of the Nationalist Congress Party and Omar Abdullah, leader of the National Conference were among them who visited Badal’s ancestral village in Punjab’s Muktsar district to honour the late leader who died at a hospital in Mohali in Punjab. Prime minister Narendra Modi paid tributes to Badal in state capital Chandigarh on Wednesday (26).
Badal was the last surviving member of a political generation of India that saw independence, the emergency of the 1970s and Punjab’s politics taking a surprising turn last year when the Aam Aadmi Party came to power in the state for the first time.
The patriarch of the Punjab-based Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) became the chief minister of Punjab for the first time in 1970 when he headed a coalition government but could not complete his term. He also served as the chief minister between 1977 and 1980, 1997 and 2002 and 2007 and 2017 when he served two consecutive terms.
During his long political career, Badal was elected as the state legislator 11 times and lost only twice. He briefly joined the government of Morarji Desai, the first non-Congress government in New Delhi, as the agriculture minister. He was a statesman who was respected by all, including his rivals.
Born on December 8, 1927, in Abul Khurana near Malout town in Muktsar district of Punjab, he became the youngest chief minister in India in 1970 when he headed a coalition government which lasted for a little more than a year. When his final term as the chief minister concluded in 2017, Badal was among the oldest to have served in that post.
The late leader, who also served as the leader of the opposition in Punjab assembly in three terms, was a farmer-friendly administrator. One of the key decisions that his government took was to provide free power for agriculture and it was over a controversial farm legislation of the Modi government in 2020 that Badal’s SAD severed ties with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.
Badal also returned his Padma Vibhushan Award, India’s second-highest civilian award, which he received in 2015, in 2020 in support of the farmers’ protest against New Delhi’s controversial farm laws.
As a sign of tribute to the former chief minister, the Indian government declared a two-day state mourning on Wednesday (26) and Thursday (27). The government of Punjab declared a day of state mourning on Thursday while the northern state of Bihar also announced a two-day mourning.
His cremation was held on Thursday.
