Parkash Singh Badal (8 December 1927 – 25 April 2023) was an Indian politician who was Chief Minister of Punjab five times between 1970 and 2017 and the dominant figure of the Shiromani Akali Dal, the main party of the Sikhs, for half a century. His career ran from a village council in the year of independence to an assembly election fought at the age of 94.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Parkash Singh Badal |
| Born | 8 December 1927, Abul Khurana, near Malout, Punjab, India |
| Died | 25 April 2023, Mohali, Punjab (aged 95) |
| Party | Shiromani Akali Dal |
| Office | Chief Minister of Punjab (1970–1971; 1977–1980; 1997–2002; 2007–2017) |
| Constituency | Lambi (1997–2022) |
| Education | Forman Christian College, Lahore |
| Spouse | Surinder Kaur (d. 2011) |
| Children | 2 (Sukhbir Singh Badal and Parneet Kaur) |
Early Life
Badal was born into a landowning Jat Sikh family of the Dhillon clan in the Malwa region. He graduated from Forman Christian College in Lahore and in 1947 was elected sarpanch of Badal village.
Political Career
He entered the Punjab assembly in 1957. In March 1970 he became Chief Minister at 43, then the youngest in India. He took part in almost every Akali agitation and by his own count spent about seventeen years in jail, including during the Emergency. In 1977 he was briefly Union Minister for Agriculture under Morarji Desai before returning to lead Punjab.
He stayed with the moderate wing of the Akalis through the militancy of the 1980s and became party president in 1995. He built a lasting alliance with the BJP, presenting it as a bond between Sikhs and Hindus, and handed the presidency to his son Sukhbir in 2008.
His government of 1997 gave free electricity to farmers. In 2012 the alliance became the first in decades to win a second consecutive term in Punjab. Those ten years saw new roads, power plants and welfare schemes, but also anger over drugs, the family’s business interests and incidents of sacrilege in 2015, and the party fell to third place in 2017.
Final Years
He received the Padma Vibhushan in 2015 and returned it in December 2020 in support of farmers protesting against three farm laws, over which his party had left the alliance with the BJP. In 2022 he contested Lambi again and lost. He died in hospital in Mohali on 25 April 2023 and was cremated at Badal village.
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was Parkash Singh Badal born?
Parkash Singh Badal was born on 8 December 1927 in Abul Khurana, near Malout, Punjab, India.
When did Parkash Singh Badal die?
Died: 25 April 2023, Mohali, Punjab (aged 95).
Featured image: Parkash Singh Badal (left), then Chief Minister of Punjab, calls on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, New Delhi, 2 June 2009. Photo by Prime Minister’s Office, licensed under Government Open Data License – India, via Wikimedia Commons.
