On December 27, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has formally announced an alliance with Capt Amarinder’s newly formed party Punjab Lok Congress and Dhindsa’s party Shiromani Akali Dal (Sanyukt). All three parties will soon issue a joint manifesto. Union Minister Gajendra Shekhawat, the poll in charge of Punjab, said in a statement that all three parties would form a joint committee comprising of two leaders from each party to decide on the seat share for the upcoming assembly elections in the state.
While addressing the media, Shekhawat said, “A meeting attended by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP president J P Nadda, Amarinder Singh and Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa was held here. And it was decided that the BJP, Singh’s party and Dhindsa’s party will jointly contest upcoming assembly polls in Punjab.”
Earlier today, Dhindsa, a Rajya Sabha MP and former Chief Minister of Punjab, Captain Amarinder Singh, had met top leaders of BJP, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP national president JP Nadda to discuss the poll strategy.
Punjab 2022 Assembly elections are going to be a nail biter
Since the last assembly elections, a lot has changed in the Political scenario of Punjab. The long term Congress leader Captain Amarinder Singh has to step down from the post of CM as the Congress’s Delhi leadership weighed on Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu. Singh later left the party and claimed that he felt humiliated by the way everything happened in the state. He later formed his own party and now have announced an alliance with BJP.
While BJP has faced severe backlash in Punjab in the last year due to the agriculture laws, they have joined hands with two prominent Sikh leaders in the state, it is possible that the three parties could give a promising fight to the other players.
BJP and SAD broke their long term alliance over the three agriculture laws soon after the laws were passed in Lok Sabha. Then Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal also resigned from her post. SAD has now formed an alliance with Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party to contest the upcoming assembly elections.
The farmer unions that protested against the three Agriculture laws for over a year have announced they would contest the upcoming assembly elections. They have also announced the formation of the party for the same. While some unions were not in favour of contesting the elections, the majority of the unions are going to show their “power” in 2022 state elections under the leadership of Balbir Singh Rajewal as CM face.
One more interesting aspect of the upcoming elections is the possibility of an alliance between the party formed by the farmer unions and the Aam Aadmi Party. In the last assembly elections, AAP showed better than expected results, and they are hoping to rise further in the state. Another important point that one must keep in mind is that the farmer unions announced their party at a very late stage. It is possible that if they contest the election in alliance with AAP, they either have to show their candidates as independent or have to fight the election under the banner of AAP.
