Gurugram: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has trained its guns on Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, accusing him of trying to poach its Sangrur MLA Narinder Kaur Bharaj ahead of the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections.
Bharaj claimed Saini’s office reached out for a “closed-door meeting” and dangled a BJP ticket for her constituency, promising to meet “any demand” she had.
The allegation, made at a joint press conference with AAP Punjab spokesperson Baltej Pannu on Thursday, has been dismissed outright by Saini.
“Kaun Bharaj? Mujhe toh uska naam bhi nahin pata (who Bharaj? I don’t even know her name),” he said.
The Haryana CM said the charges were “baseless” and “politically motivated”, adding that the people of Punjab would give their verdict in 2027.
“If a BJP government is formed, gangsterism will end,” he asserted.
But the row has thrown a sharper light on something that has been building for months: Saini’s deep foray into Punjab’s political landscape.
The turban and the trail
Since the middle of 2025, the Haryana chief minister has been a near-weekly visitor to Punjab—more so since January this year.
A senior BJP leader in Haryana who doesn’t want to be quoted told ThePrint that the party leadership has told Saini to spend at least two days a week in Punjab in the run up to the elections in that state.
He has been spotted at gurdwaras from Amritsar’s Golden Temple to Anandpur Sahib, Fatehgarh Sahib and Machhiwara.
He has been addressing public meetings in Punjab almost every week. At each stop, the saffron turban is a constant. He speaks in Punjabi, slips into Haryanvi-inflected Hindi when the moment demands, and addresses crowds on “good governance” and the “Haryana model”.
BJP insiders describe it as a calculated outreach.
Saini, an OBC leader whose mother Kulwant Kaur is Sikh, is being positioned as the party’s bridge to Punjab’s non-Jat Sikh and OBCs, including Saini communities.
Saini’s media coordinator, Ashok Chhabra, told ThePrint that the chief minister comes from Mirzapur Majra village in Ambala district, adding that the culture in the border areas adjoining Punjab closely mirrors that of the neighbouring state.
He added that one would find several families in the area who have a tradition of one male child adopting Sikhism.
Chhabra said he himself used to don a turban when he was younger.
The Saini belt—Dera Bassi, Rajpura, rural Patiala—is small but electorally relevant. Party leaders say the Haryana CM’s fluency in Punjabi blunts the ‘outsider’ tag.
“People from Punjab keep inviting me. I go as a party worker,” Saini has said on multiple occasions.
In recent rallies, he has openly pitched for a BJP government in Chandigarh, promising to replicate Haryana’s schemes and “heal” Punjab from what he calls years of “lies and misgovernance”.
Dr Jyoti Mishra, assistant professor of political science at Amity University, Mohali, and former researcher at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), said mobilising Saini for the Punjab polls goes beyond reaching out to the Saini community, it is also aimed at consolidating the broader bloc of non-Jat Sikhs, including OBCs and Dalits.
“Punjab has nearly 31 per cent OBCs, including Sainis, many of them Sikh. The state has a 32 to 33 per cent Dalit population, one of the highest in the country. By pitting more than 60 per cent of this population against Jat Sikhs who have enjoyed power disproportionate to their population so far, as of the 13 CMs who have served Punjab since Haryana was carved out of it in 1966, all barring two (Giani Zail Singh and Charanjit Singh Channi) have been Jat Sikhs, the BJP can aim to do what it successfully did in Haryana—pit Jats against other,” Mishra added.
AAP’s counter: ‘Deputation CM’
For the AAP, Saini’s visits are not about neighbourly interest—it is ‘Operation Lotus’ 2.0.
Pannu and Bharaj described Saini’s activities as a full-time assignment. “It seems the BJP has sent him to Punjab on deputation,” Bharaj said, adding that she had been a dedicated AAP worker since 2014, when she became the party’s first woman polling agent in her village at age 19.
The Sangrur MLA, who became Punjab’s youngest legislator in 2022 at 27, recounted how she was approached through a local intermediary. “They said the BJP needs candidates in every seat. They offered me the Sangrur ticket and said all my demands would be met.” She rejected it flatly: “I was made MLA by AAP and the people of Sangrur. My politics is not for sale.”
This is not the first time AAP has spoken of horse-trading. In 2022, soon after forming the government, it had complained to the DGP about similar attempts on at least 10 MLAs, terming the attempts as ‘Operation Lotus’.
Why Saini? The BJP’s Punjab gamble
Mishra said the BJP has long struggled to make electoral inroads in Punjab, with the 2022 Assembly elections yielding little success. Its alliance with the Akali Dal unraveled after the farm laws, and since then the party has been working to rebuild—inducting new leaders, holding outreach events, and now projecting Saini as a prominent face of its campaign.
She said that Punjab and Haryana share water disputes, farmer sentiments, and a porous border. No surprise then that the BJP has chosen the Haryana CM to woo voters in Punjab.
“A strong performance in Punjab would also help the BJP consolidate its OBC and non-Jat vote in Haryana’s border districts. Saini, who led the party to a surprise third consecutive win in Haryana last year, is seen as the man who can deliver in Punjab too,” she added.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
Also read: Road to power in Punjab runs through its farms. How BJP’s laying groundwork to go solo in 2027