Social math to chemistry, why BJP, Akali Dal face hurdles on road to Punjab alliance

Despite senior BJP leaders’ statements claiming that the party would go solo in the Punjab Assembly elections slated for February 2027, the party’s backroom talks for an alliance with the Sukhbir Badal-led Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) are continuing at various levels, according to BJP insiders. The push for a renewed alignment between the two erstwhile NDA allies seems to be coming mostly from the Akali Dal camp, with senior SAD leaders like Harsimrat Kaur Badal, the party’s lone Lok Sabha MP and wife of Sukhbir, and her brother and ex-minister Bikram Singh Majithia and their several loyalists making the case for a “reunion” of the two parties.Publicly, the BJP leadership, both at the Centre and in Punjab, have stuck to the line that the party would contest all 117 Assembly seats in the state on its own. However, the key question arising from the two parties’ current engagements is, could their alliance revive their social coalition as well as political chemistry that existed before the SAD walked out of the NDA in September 2020 in protest against the now-repealed central farm laws. Shifting grounds Punjab politics has seen massive changes since the break-up of the NDA alliance. The SAD and the BJP contested the 2022 Assembly elections and the 2024 Lok Sabha polls separately in the state, with both getting routed in them. While the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) swept the Assembly polls, the principal Opposition Congress dominated the Lok Sabha polls.

Observers point out that the old SAD-BJP alliance worked better because it made electoral sense on its own terms: the BJP connected with Punjab’s Hindu voters, the Akali Dal reached out to the state’s majority Sikh community, with the two allies complementing each other while rarely competing for the same vote base. The scenario may have changed now. Switching sides A slew of Akali leaders have crossed over to the BJP after 2020 — most recently, former SAD Bathinda Rural MLA Darshan Singh Kotfatta joined the BJP earlier this month. Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (PTI Photos)In the Majha region, the SAD’s traditional stronghold, three senior party leaders — including two former MLAs, Amarpal Bony (Ajnala) and Manjeet Singh Manna (Baba Bakala), and Ravi Karan Singh Kahlon (Dera Baba Nanak) — have switched to the BJP now. Several second-line SAD leaders like Harjit Singh Sandhu — who had contested, unsuccessfully, the Tarn Taran Assembly bypoll on the BJP ticket last year — have also joined the BJP. “Bargaining such seats would hurt the SAD’s image as a Sikh party,” said a Majha party leader who did not want to be named.

Several former Congress leaders, including Kewal Dhillon — the state BJP president — and ex-Union minister Ravneet Singh Bittu, have also switched loyalties to join the BJP fold. Earlier, both Dhillon and Bittu had remained severely critical of the Akali Dal on a range of issues. However, a BJP leader with a Congress background said: “We are in the BJP now. We will accept whatever decision the BJP makes. But it would not be a good PR for either party when Sukhbir Badal joins Kewal Dhillon and Ravneet Bittu on a common stage.” In April this year, senior lawyer and ex-AAP leader H S Phoolka – known for his legal crusade to secure justice for victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots – joined the BJP. Phoolka has been a staunch critic of the Badal family. The old SAD-BJP alliance had a synergy and narrative about the outreach of the two parties to the major communities of the state. “That narrative may not hold now as the BJP eyes the Sikh-dominated seats with Sikh candidates,” said a BJP leader, admitting that “vote transfer” would be a “big question” now for the allies. “The BJP is expected to get the SAD’s semi-urban seats in the alliance deal, where there are Sikh votes which may be transferred to BJP. But in rural seats such as mine, how much BJP votes would be transferred to my vote share? These were the voters of the Congress before Modi intensified the polarisation process,” said a SAD leader. SAD, BJP equations And, yet, the SAD seems to be keen to join hands with the BJP as it has been under siege on various fronts, struggling to retain its hold over its core Sikh base, given that its rival parties – the Amritpal Singh-led Akali Dal (Warris Punjab De) and AAP and Congress – have been trying to woo the same base. The BJP has an upper hand in its negotiations with the SAD as it is not only ruling the Centre but also seems to have garnered a significant chunk of Hindu votes in the urban areas and even some Dalit votes in the rural belts. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP could not win any seat in Punjab, but its vote share doubled from 9% to 18%. On the other hand, the Akali Dal won only one out of 13 seats, but its vote share plunged by more than half, from 27% to 13%. Also, it has yet to be seen how the SAD and the BJP would deal with tricky political issues like repeated paroles for Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and denial of similar concessions to “bandi Sikhs (militant Sikh prisoners)” languishing in various prisons for many years. Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim SinghGurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, serving a 20-year sentence for raping two disciples, walked out of Haryana’s Sunaria jail Tuesday on a 21-day furlough, which was his 17th release since his conviction in 2017. This has fuelled uproar among the Sikh organisations demanding the release of the Sikh prisoners.

“The SAD-BJP tie-up has its positives and negatives. It has more negatives now than what the alliance faced before 2019. That was a totally different alignment. Also, it is now not the BJP of Attal Bihari Vajpayee or Lal Krishna Advani that we are dealing with. So we need to be alert,” said a SAD leader.