Teja Singh Samudri Hall, the head office of SGPC. (Archive)

With just over two years to go before next Assembly elections, a political churning of sorts has begun in Punjab with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has always played the junior partner to the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), making noise about going it alone in 2022. The saffron party has been testing waters by reaching out to rebel and mainstream leaders in the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as well as in the SAD, its ally in the NDA.

Sources inform that several AAP rebel leaders were recently approached by BJP’s local leadership in order to woo them into joining the party. AAP leaders have confirmed that this reaching out exercise was not only limited to the rebels but also to the mainstream party leaders.

“It is quite clear that BJP is testing waters and trying to find out what the groundswell is in political circles in case it decides to jettison its alliance with the Akali Dal in the 2022 Assembly polls. The recent statements made by a section of BJP leaders like Madan Mohan Mittal and Mohan Lal also point towards this direction,” said a senior AAP leader who was contacted by BJP.

On the day Ashwani Sharma as elected the new BJP state president, Mohan Lal, a former minister, urged him to make it a target to contest the next Punjab polls alone. “When we can form governments in Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh, where we had started as a small partner, then why are we dependent on the Akalis in Punjab,” he had asked.

Mittal, also a former minister, had favoured the alliance but demanded a that BJP must contest 59 seats in the next state polls.

Out of the total 117 assembly seats in Punjab, BJP contests on 23 while Akali Dal contests on 94.

The BJP is also learnt to be in touch with the rebel SAD leaders and a section of disgruntled leaders within its alliance partner who have not yet spoken out against the party leadership. “The main battle ahead at this time is for the control of Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC). If BJP is able to wrest the control of the SGPC from the Badals (the family led by Akali Dal patron and former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal), then they (SAD) will be finished politically. Do you think the Dhindsas (Rajya Sabha MP Sukhdev Singh and his MLA son Parminder) are speaking out on their own accord? There is no doubt there is BJP hand there too,” said a BJP leader not wanting to be named.

The father-son duo of Dhindsas, who have rebelled against the “family rule” in Akali Dal, were suspended by the party earlier this month.

Contacted, senior Shiromani Akali Dal (Taksali) leader Bir Devinder Singh said, “The policies adopted by Badals has led to Panthic polity being buried in the state. Political aspirations of Sikhs have been buried by them for their own vested interests. This has emboldened BJP. They believe that if they can win 303 seats in the Parliament by causing a vertical divide among communities then why not do the same here too. When Hindu vote consolidates here it will increase their strength”.

He further said that Badals have become irrelevant in Punjab. “This is a game plan to ridicule Akalis. They have done this in Delhi, where Akalis were forced to withdraw from the Assembly polls, and the BJP is now doing it in Punjab. As far as conceding equal number of seats in Assembly polls to BJP is concerned, the Akalis may even agree to it under pressure,” he said.

The Taksali Akalis, however, are also charting their own course. The party leaders made it a point to visit Shaheen Bagh in Delhi, earlier this week, to sit with those protesting against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA). They also visited the JNU and spoke to the students. Back in Punjab, Taksali leaders have appealed to sulking Congress leader, Navjot Singh Sidhu, to join hands with them and be the CM candidate of their party.

Meanwhile, in the main opposition party, AAP, the mood is upbeat over the forthcoming Delhi Assembly polls. Party leadership feels that they will win hands down in Delhi and this will give a fillip to the beleaguered Punjab unit as well.

“AAPs prospects in Punjab will definitely be on the upswing after the party wins Delhi. It is too early for our detractors to write off AAP because there is still a viable space for political alternate to SAD and Congress as people are fed up with them,” said Leader of Opposition, Harpal Cheema.

Referring to the BJPs talk of parting ways with SAD and going it alone in Punjab, Cheema said that they have said it thrice since 2014. “BJP has scored a hat-trick of defeats in Punjab in 2014, 2017 and 2019 despite so-called Modi wave in rest of the country. People of Punjab are secular and will never go for a communal party to come to power in Punjab,” he said.

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