Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined political leaders cutting across party lines and scores of people in paying homage to the five-time Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal at the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) office in Chandigarh on Wednesday.
Modi reached Chandigarh this afternoon and went to the SAD office here to pay his last respects to Badal (95) who passed away on Tuesday after being hospitalised in Mohali a week back.
Punjab Governor Punjab Banwarilal Purohit and Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar accompanied the PM to the SAD office where political leaders across the party lines and people started queuing up early this morning to pay their last respects to the Akali Dal patriarch.
The mortal remains of the SAD leader were being taken to his village Badal in Lambi tehsil of Muktsar district where the cremation will be held on 27 April. The Punjab government declared a holiday on Thursday in honour of Badal. All government offices, departments, boards, corporations and educational institutions in the state will remain shut on Thursday, an official order said.
The former CM was admitted to Fortis Hospital in Mohali a week ago after he complained of uneasiness while breathing.”Despite appropriate medical management S Parkash Singh Badal succumbed to his illness. Fortis Hospital Mohali deeply condoles the death of S Parkash Singh Badal,” a statement from the hospital said on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday led the tributes to the Punjab leader, calling him a “colossal figure of Indian politics, and a remarkable statesman”.
“Parkash Singh Badal’s passing away is a personal loss for me. I have interacted closely with him for many decades and learnt so much from him,” PM Modi said in a tweet expressing his condolences.
“Extremely saddened by the passing away of Shri Parkash Singh Badal Ji. He was a colossal figure of Indian politics, and a remarkable statesman who contributed greatly to our nation. He worked tirelessly for the progress of Punjab and anchored the state through critical times,” tweeted PM Modi, along with a picture of himself with the veteran leader.
Badal climbed his way up the political ladder after serving as a village sarpanch and then contesting Assembly elections for the first time in 1957 when he was 30-year-old, as a Congressman.
Badal was the youngest chief minister to ever hold office in Punjab at the age of 43. In a career spanning over seven decades, he lost only two elections – one in 1967, and the latest in the 2022 Punjab Assembly election when he lost to the Aam Aadmi Party candidate.
He courted arrest during Operation Bluestar in June 1984 when the Army had entered the Golden Temple complex at Amritsar to flush out militants. Badal’s party, SAD, broke ties with Bharatiya Janata Party in the wake of farmers’ protest in 2020. He also returned his Padma Vibhushan award, the second highest civilian honour of the country, as a sign of protest against the government’s treatment of protesting farmers.
Badal was born in Punjab’s Abul Khurana close to the Rajasthan border and studied at Lahore’s Forman Christian College.