Chandigarh: Former allies Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Thursday ruled out the possibility of an alliance in the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
Talking to mediapersons during a visit to the Golden Temple Thursday afternoon, Punjab BJP in-charge Vijay Rupani made it clear that his party will contest all the 13 parliamentary seats in the state on its own.
He said the elections will be held under the leadership of the new state party president, Sunil Jakhar.
SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal, who is just back from a month-long holiday, told mediapersons in Chandigarh that the question of the party allying with the BJP did not arise. He said his party had a tie-up with the BSP, and the SAD-BSP alliance would continue.
Badal had called a meeting of SAD assembly and district heads Thursday, which he said was a routine exercise to devise strategies to take on the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in the state.
The statements of the two leaders come amid speculation regarding the coming together of the old allies ahead of the parliamentary elections next year.
The SAD-BJP alliance
The two parties, which were together for three decades, parted ways in September 2020 over the three controversial farm laws brought in by the Modi government. The three laws had led to a huge protest in Punjab, which then shifted to the borders of Delhi.
Harsimrat Badal, who was then a part of the Modi cabinet, resigned in protest, followed by the Akali Dal announcing the end of the alliance.
The Akalis went on to ally with the BSP and the two parties contested the 2022 assembly elections together. The BJP, meanwhile, joined hands with the Punjab Lok Congress (PLC), a new political outfit launched by former Congress chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh.
Captain Amrinder Singh left the Congress after he was removed as chief minister in 2021 by the Congress high command before he could finish his term.
The SAD-BSP combine got three seats in the 117-member assembly. The BJP-PLC alliance secured two. After the elections, Amarinder dissolved the PLC and merged with the BJP. Apart from Amarinder, Sunil Jakhar, Rana Gurmeet Singh Sodhi, Gurpreet Singh Kangar, Raj Kumar Verka, Sunder Sham Arora, Balbir Singh Sidhu and Manpreet Badal of the Congress have since joined the BJP.
Since the political fortunes of both the SAD and the BJP had seen a downturn since they parted ways, speculation was rife that they would finally come together for the next parliamentary elections.
Sources in the Punjab BJP, however, pointed out that a substantial number of leaders in the state unit were former Congressmen whose entire political careers were based on bashing the Akali Dal and their leaders, and their coming together with the Akali leadership will not be accepted by the electorate.
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)