Chandigarh: A week after Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) were negotiating a possible tie-up for the parliamentary elections, BJP state chief Sunil Jakhar Tuesday announced that the party will be contesting alone in Punjab.
Polling for the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab will be held on 1 June.
Apart from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which has declared eight candidates, no other party in Punjab has declared candidates for any seat.
In a video posted on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter), Jakhar said the decision had been taken after due consultation with senior party leaders.
“The BJP will fight the elections in Punjab based on the tireless work that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has done for the poor and downtrodden, the farmers and for the traders of this country,” said Jakhar.
BJP to contest the Lok Sabha elections alone in Punjab.
ਭਾਰਤੀ ਜਨਤਾ ਪਾਰਟੀ ਲੋਕ ਸਭਾ ਚੋਣਾਂ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਵਿਚ ਇੱਕਲੇ ਲੜਨ ਜਾ ਰਹੀ ਹੈ। pic.twitter.com/FbzfaePNj3
— Sunil Jakhar(Modi Ka Parivar) (@sunilkjakhar) March 26, 2024
Meanwhile, there has been no official reaction from the Akali Dal to Jakhar’s announcement.
Sources in the BJP said that the talks between the two parties have come unstuck over the sharing of seats. “The BJP wanted five of the 13 seats, while the Akalis were ready to give only three,” a senior BJP leader told ThePrint.
The SAD’s core committee met Friday to discuss the possible tie-up. While resolving to remain committed to the party’s basic values and principles, the committee members had not made public any decision regarding the tie-up.
While speculation regarding the revival of the alliance has been going on for several months, Shah Wednesday confirmed in a television interview with News 18 that formal negotiations between the two parties were on.
In the interview, Shah had said the BJP was trying to bring together all former allies back into the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) without compromising on the prestige and honour of his party.
Also Read: BJP & SAD in talks to revive tie-up for Lok Sabha polls, seat-sharing formula to be finalised soon
First solo LS elections for BJP in state
The BJP will be contesting the parliamentary elections on its own in Punjab for the first time in two decades.
During its long-standing bond with the SAD, which began in 1997 and ended in 2021, the BJP contested only three seats — Amritsar, Hoshiarpur and Gurdaspur. The party is a marginal player in most of the constituencies and was dependent on the SAD in rural areas.
After the two allies parted ways in 2021 following the farmers’ agitation over three central farm laws, the BJP has been trying to win over leaders from other parties. The BJP has also tried to make inroads into rural areas, banking on Modi’s outreach to the Sikh community.
The party’s vote share has averaged 10 percent in various Lok Sabha elections since 1997 — all contested in alliance with the SAD.
In the 2022 assembly elections, when the BJP contested without the SAD as an ally, its vote share was 6.6 percent — a marginal increase from 5.39 percent in 2017.
From 2007 to 2017, the SAD-BJP alliance remained in power for two consecutive terms in Punjab. In 2012, when the SAD-BJP alliance made history by coming to power for the second term, the SAD’s vote share was 34.73 percent and the BJP’s was over 7 percent. The alliance beat the Congress vote share of a little over 40 percent to retain power.
In the 2017 assembly elections, the SAD vote share went down to 25.24 percent and that of the BJP to 5.4 percent, leading to the Congress forming the government with a 38.5 percent vote share.
The SAD’s vote share dropped to 18.38 percent and that of the BJP to 6.6 percent in 2022.
The Akali leaders, like those of the BJP, has tried to put its own house in order to regain its political footprint in the state.
In December, party chief and Ferozepur MP Sukhbir Singh Badal issued a public apology to the Sikhs for his failure to stop multiple incidents of sacrilege nine years ago, the repercussions of which ultimately toppled the party from power.
Badal has also managed to bring back many of the old guards, who had left the party and formed separate groups.
In December 2021, Ranjit Singh Brahmpura along with his son Ravinder Singh rejoined the SAD after three years of having left the party in 2018. Brahmpura died in 2022.
Earlier this month, another senior leader Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa rejoined SAD, merging the SAD (Sanyukt) with the SAD. Bibi Jagir Kaur, another senior party leader, also returned to the party this month.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
Also Read: AAP, Congress uniting for 2024 will hurt both in Punjab & SAD will have last laugh, says Sukhbir Badal