Chandigarh: Apparently desperate to improve its show in poll-bound Punjab, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which is contesting on 73 of the total 117 seats for the first time in the past about three decades, has not only roped in several prominent Sikh faces but has also played big on first-timers.
As a junior partner with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) till 2020, the BJP was never given more than 23 constituencies (out of 117) and that too urban seats since 1995 when it also failed to have any tall Sikh leaders.
The SAD snapped its ties with the saffron party two years ago over the now-repealed farm laws. The BJP, thus, has an alliance with the Punjab Lok Congress (PLC) floated recently by the former two-time and five-time legislator Capt Amarinder Singh as well as SAD’s splinter group – SAD (Sanyukt) - floated by senior Akali leader Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa.
While the BJP is contesting on 73 seats, the PLC has got 30 seats, and the Rajya Sabha MP Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa-led SAD (Sanyukt), 14 seats in the alliance.
Repealing of farm laws notwithstanding, the party leaders may hate to admit it, the damage caused by the said farm laws was severe to such an extent that it has left the Punjab BJP in a sticky situation this election time. So much so, some senior leaders including the former minister and two-time MLA from Amritsar Anil Joshi had also sided with farmers and later joined SAD.
While the BJP Central leadership wasted no time in roping in senior SAD leader and a known Sikh face from Delhi, Manjinder Singh Sirsa at the national level, the state BJP has had several prominent Sikh faces here.
While the Harnam Singh Dhumma, chief of the Damdami Taksal, a Sikh seminary, hailed PM Narendra Modi for his announcement of December 26 as ``Vir Bal Divas’’ to honour the two younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh killed by Mughals, Dhumma’s spokesperson Sarchand Singh, a former president of Sikh Students Federation, and Kanwarveer Singh Tohra, the grandson of tall Akali leader late Gurcharan Singh Tohra, joined BJP.
Other prominent Sikh faces who have joined BJP include Harinder Singh Kahlon, former president of All India Sikh Students Federation (AISSF), Jagmohan Saini, president of Farmers’ Intellectual Front, from Patiala, Nirmal Singh from Mohali, Kuldeep Singh Kahlon also from AISSF, Gurdaspur, former vice-chancellor of Guru Kashi University, Jaswinder Singh Dhillon and Col Jaibans Singh from Patiala.
Even though both, SAD and BJP, had fared poorly, with 13 and 2 seats in 2017, the saffron party’s worries also include the emerging AAP which could swing its Hindu votes, especially in urban areas too.
The BJP has thus fielded some of the prominent first-timers who include national minorities commission chairman Iqbal Singh Lalpura (BJP candidate from Ropar), industrialist Sanjeev Vashisht (from Mohali), and Nimisha Mehta, who joined the saffron party leaving the Congress, (from Garhshankar) while Kamaldeep Singh Saini, a confidant of Capt Amarinder Singh, is the BJP candidate from Kharar.
Meanwhile, the BJP also decided to focus on about 35 seats where it still had some influence and these were which it had won at least once in the past three elections. These seats include Garhshankar, Ropar, Atamnagar, Ludhiana South, Ludhiana East, Dera Bassi, Khanna, Sangrur, Bathinda Urban, Gurdaspur, Batala, and Mansa.
