As today marks the centenary of the Shiromani Akali Dal, important to note how the modern “Akali Dal” is basically one branch from various splinters and unifications in the 80s and 90s - the Akali Dal (Badal) - that dominated the scene post-1997. This diagram shows these splits:

Some caveats I’ll give for the diagram as I made it is that:

-it covers the period from 1985 to 1996. The dark blue box represents the party prior to the military occupation of Punjab from 1984-1985 when Akali activists were arrested. There were splits before that though as well

-similarly, there have been splits proceeding 1996 (some in the last 5 years) which I haven’t covered

-the diagram reads up to down but is NOT to scale with regards to relative timing of splits/unifications

-the light blue boxes represent branches that still contest elections

-I’ve omitted some SAD groups/branches which I don’t have any clue about (e.g., SAD Babbar)

-there may be some mistakes; I’m not a journalist or academic, so go easy :) would love to learn more about this

To read about how the SAD-Badal not only defeated all the branches in electoral politics, but also subsumed them, exerted dominance, AND introduced dynastic politics; check this excellent piece by IP Singh (much more knowledgeable at this than me) https://twitter.com/ipsinghTOI/status/1208970786138030080