This year's Punjab assembly polls came as a litmus test for Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal as he shouldered the responsibility of steering his 100-year-old party without the active participation of his father and party patriarch Parkash Singh Badal.
Often credited with his party's victory in the 2012 assembly polls, now 59, Sukhbir became the youngest chief of the Shiromani Akali Dal, when he was elevated to the post in 2008.
His political innings started over two decades ago when he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Faridkot twice in a span of two years and served as the Union minister of state for industry in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. Later, he was Punjab's deputy chief minister.
This was his first election when he came out of the shadow of his father, who had restricted his public appearances because of his age and the COVID pandemic.
The stakes were high for the Shiromani Akali Dal and Sukhbir Badal was hoping for the revival of his party, which was relegated to the third position in the last assembly elections, bagging just 15 of the 117 assembly seats.
This time, the party touched a new low, winning just three seats.
Sukhbir Badal himself has last from Jalalabad to AAP.
But the going was tough from the start.
Months back, the party had snapped its 24-year-old electoral ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party due to differences over the Centre's farm laws.
Instead his party forged an alliance with the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party.
He travelled across the state, reminding people of the development work done during his party's 10-year term from 2007 to 2017.
In a multi-cornered contest, the SAD made a head start by announcing candidates early on.
There was also quibbling over who was the party's CM face, with Badal himself being seen as the only contender for it.
He projected the SAD as Punjab's 'own party.'
Badal, an MP from Ferozepur, converted the contest for the Amritsar East constituency into the mother of all electoral battles in the state by pitting his brother-in-law and senior party leader Bikram Singh Majithia against state Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu.
He had done his schooling from the Lawrence School, Sanawar, and completed MA from Panjab University in 1985 and MBA from California State University, USA in 1991.
Sukhbir Badal's wife Harsimrat Kaur Badal was a Union minister and had resigned over the issue of farm laws.
Both have two daughters and a son.
Sukhbir Badal was elected from the Faridkot Lok Sabha constituency in 1996 and again in 1998 and 2004.
He became the deputy chief minister in 2009 and was elected as MLA from Jalalabad constituency in a by-election.
He was again elected from Jalalabad in 2012 and 2017. Sukhbir Badal fought the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and became MP from Ferozepur seat.
