Gone and back again: Caught in Akali faction war, bypoll candidate who switched parties twice in a day

An Akali Dal candidate in the morning, an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader soon afterwards, and back in the Akali Dal by evening. For Surjit Kaur, Tuesday was one whirlwind of a back-and-forth journey across the aisle as she attempted to negotiate the tricky political terrain ahead of the Jalandhar West Assembly bypoll scheduled on July 10.

As an internal struggle continued in the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), Kaur, a two-time councillor, filed nomination papers as the party’s candidate, getting its symbol “takdi (scale)” even as the party officially said it would back the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the SC-reserved constituency. The SAD disowned Kaur amid her proximity to a group of rebel party leaders among whom are former Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) chief Bibi Jagir Kaur, who was on the party panel that endorsed Kaur’s candidature for the bypoll, and former MLA Gurpartap Singh Wadala. These rebel leaders on Monday appeared before the jatedhar of the Akal Takht, which is the supreme temporal seat of Sikhs, and apologised for “ four mistakes” committed when the party was in power between 2007 and 2017.

Left standing alone, Kaur joined the AAP on Tuesday morning and was welcomed by Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann. “I am joining the AAP to support a party which is working for the common people and their development. I will now support AAP candidate Mohinderpal Bhagat,” she said. But by the evening, the 60-year-old returned to the SAD, claiming she was still an “Akali at heart” and had been coerced into joining the ruling party. She emphasised that she would contest the bypoll as a SAD candidate.

AAP working president and Budhlada MLA Budh Ram criticised Kaur for “backtracking under pressure” and emphasised