CHANDIGARH: The Bharatiya Janata Party (
BJP) has neither accepted nor denied the possibility of any post-poll alliance with its former alliance partner, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab. The two parties ended their almost 24-year alliance after
SAD led by its president Sukhbir Singh Badal snapped ties over the three contentious farm laws that had
Punjab on the brink for over a year.
“Let the public mandate come first. We can only think after March 10. I am neither saying yes nor no to any possibility,” BJP national general secretary
Tarun Chugh
told TOI. He was reacting to the statement purportedly made by the SAD MLA and candidate from Amritsar East constituency Bikram Singh Majithia on Sunday. A media organisation had quoted him as saying that the SAD will decide on forming an alliance with the BJP after Punjab poll results.
However, later Majithia claimed that his statement had been misquoted. “Our alliance is with BSP (Bahujan Samaj Party) only,” clarified Majithia.
The BJP is contesting the 2022 Punjab assembly polls in alliance with former chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh’s Punjab Lok Congress (PLC) and Rajya Sabha member
Sukhdev Singh
Dhindsa’s Shiromani Akali Dal (Sanyukt).
Interestingly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who campaigned extensively in Punjab in the last week before voting, did not target the Badals in the same way as he targeted the Gandhis and Congress and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party. In fact, he had even called up the SAD patriarch Parkash Singh Badal after he had tested positive for Covid-19 in January.
Modi had criticised SAD for failing to give the deputy CM post to BJP’s Manoranjan Kalia in 2007 even when the party had 19 MLAs and its support provided SAD a chance to form the government despite winning only 48 seats. In the same vein, even the Badals mostly focussed on targeting AAP and Congress and were fairly soft on BJP.
Meanwhile, BJP vice-president Sudan Singh, party’s in charge of northern zone, said here that Punjab had voted “peacefully and astutely” for “Punjabiyat, peace, and a prosperous state”.
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