Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday will visit Shiromani Akali Dal’s (SAD) party office in Chandigarh to pay his last respects to Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal. The 95-year-old politician died on Tuesday after being hospitalised in Mohali a week back.
“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. He recalled numerous conversations with the SAD patriarch ‘in which his wisdom was always clearly seen’ and described Badal as a ‘remarkable statesman who contributed greatly to our nation, worked tirelessly for progress of Punjab’.
The Centre has announced a two-day state mourning across India as a mark of respect to the veteran politician. “On the days of mourning, the national flag will be flown half mast on all buildings where the national flag is flown regularly and there will be no official entertainment on these two days,” a government statement said.
The five-time chief minister climbed his way up the political ladder after serving as a village sarpanch and then contesting assembly elections for the first time in 1957. Only recently, Badal’s party broke ties with BJP 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.
