The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday announced that it will contest all 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab on its own, ending weeks-long speculation about the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)’s return to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and setting the stage for a four-cornered fight in the state.
This will be the first time since 1996 that the BJP and the SAD, one of the oldest constituents of the NDA which parted ways over the 2020-21 farm law protests, will be fighting the Lok Sabha polls alone in the state.
State BJP chief Sunil Jakhar said in a video message that the decision to contest on its own in Punjab was taken keeping in mind the region’s future, especially that of youngsters and farmers, after consulting the people, local leaders, and workers at the grassroots level.
He said the BJP’s work under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not hidden from anyone. “…whatever development the BJP has been done for Punjab, be it opening the Kartarpur Corridor [for visa-free crossing for Sikhs to visit the last resting place of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak in Pakistan] or procuring grains from farmers in the state…” Jakhar said the BJP will continue to take its agenda for public welfare forward.
“SAD is not a numbers-driven organisation but a movement committed to a clear vision about Punjab and the Khalsa Panth. Our core committee had already stated firmly that for SAD, principles are always above politics. We belong to the farms, the fields and the soil of Punjab. We will continue to fight for justice to farmers,” said SAD chief Sukhbir Badal in a statement.
This is the second high-profile potential tie-up to fall through in two weeks after the BJP announced last week that it will go it alone in Odisha, following weeks of frenzied negotiations with the Biju Janata Dal. Hours after the announcement, sitting Congress member of Parliament from Ludhiana, Ravneet Singh Bittu, joined the BJP.
Punjab BJP leaders said that alliance talks hit a roadblock over certain core demands made by the SAD, rather than negotiations over seat-sharing.
People aware of the matter said BJP chief JP Nadda called SAD leader Sukhbir Singh Badal on Monday night and made a last-ditch effort to seal the alliance. But the Akalis insisted on some demands, which included shifting radical Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh and other Sikh prisoners lodged in Assam’s Dibrugarh closer to Punjab as their families have found it difficult to meet them, said the people cited above.
Singh was arrested in April 2023 after a 37-day hunt amid a crackdown on his radical organisation, Waris Punjab De, which spearheaded the storming of a police station near Amritsar to secure the release of an arrested associate.
Other demands included the withdrawal of cases against farmers lodged during the 13-month-long protests in 2020-2021 against three agricultural reform laws that were finally scrapped by the government, said the people cited in the first instance. SAD also sought assurances on minimum support prices for cotton, maize, sugarcane, and moong along with wheat and paddy, they added, and pressed for compensation as promised to those killed and injured in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri in October 2021; Union minister Ajay Kumar Mishra Teni’s son, Ashish Mishra, is the key accused in that case that involves the mowing down of four protesting farmers at Lakhimpur Kheri.
The party also pushed for the release of Sikh prisoners, particularly Balwant Singh Rajoana, who has been on dead row since his conviction for his role in the killing of the then Punjab CM Beant Singh in August 1995. The Akalis wanted the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, which manages gurdwaras, to be consulted on all issues related to Sikhs and a referendum in Haryana on the issue of a separate management committee for Sikh shrines in the state. And finally, the party wanted Wagah border opened for trade.
“Do you think such demands that also included release of Rajoana, can be met by any nationalist party?” asked BJP national executive member Harjit Singh Grewal.
SAD exited the NDA in 2020 over the passage of three contentious farm bills, days after the party’s lone minister in the Union government, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, resigned over what the party said were “anti-farmer” laws. The SAD and the BJP first allied in 1996.
Punjab has 13 seats, of which eight were won by the Congress, two each by the SAD and the BJP and one by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in 2019. Since then, the state has also voted in assembly elections in 2022, when the BJP and SAD fought separately and wontwo and three seats respectively (one seat was won by SAD’s alliance partner Bahujan Samaj Party). The AAP won a landslide victory with 92 seats in the 117-member assembly.
This time, the AAP and Congress are contesting separately in Punjab even as they are part of the Opposition’s Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance in neighbouring Haryana, Delhi, and Gujarat.
The BJP, which contested three seats in Punjab in 2019, wanted more seats than the four Akalis were willing to offer, said a senior Akali leader. BJP, SAD and Congress have not named any candidates for Punjab yet.
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