Foes in Haryana, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) are meeting as friends in Punjab to come out with a joint strategy for the by-elections.
The top leaders of the two parties — SAD president Sukhbir Badal and Punjab BJP president Shwet Malik — would meet on October 5 (Saturday) at Jalandhar, besides other senior leaders to hold discussion regarding the by-elections.
The meeting would come at a time when the relation between the SAD and the BJP has reached a new low in the neighbouring Haryana, which is going to polls on October 21, after both the parties virtually did a trade-off of its 2014 election candidates in Kalanwali assembly segment.
First, BJP inducted the SAD’s lone MLA in Haryana, Balkaur Singh, in the party fold on September 26 — a decision condemned by the Akali Dal which accusing the saffron party of “using political muscle power”. In a quid pro quo, the SAD, only a day before, made the BJP’s 2014 election candidate, Rajinder Singh Desujodha, from the same seat (Kalanwali) hold the ‘scales’.
With this, both the leaders — Balkaur Singh and Rajinder Singh Desujodha — would once again be facing each other in Kalanwali assembly segment, just like in 2014 polls, but representing each other’s party. SAD president Sukhbir Badal had declared Desujodha as party candidate from Kalanwali, while BJP has fielded Balkaur Singh. The two parties, which are running the Government in alliance at the Centre and also ruled Punjab from 2007 to 2017, contested 2014 Haryana polls against each other. While BJP had went all alone, the SAD contested polls in alliance with its old ally in Haryana, Indian National Lok Dal (INLD). At the time, the leaders of both the parties maintained a clear stand of supporting each other in Punjab but opposing in Haryana.
This time again, the two parties have made it clear that their alliance in Punjab in intact and both would contest elections together. As the Punjab’s four assembly segments — Phagwara, Mukerian, Dakha, and Jalalabad — are going or polls on October 21, the parties have decided to put its head together to chalk out the strategy for the same.
SAD’s senior vice-president and spokesman Daljit Singh Cheema, in a tweet, stated that the SAD-BJP co-ordination committee will meet in Jalandhar at 3 pm in which SAD president Sukhbir Badal and BJP Punjab president Shwet Malik will participate along with their senior colleagues on October 5.
He said that the meeting will ponder upon and finalise strategy for the four by-elections in Punjab.
BJP’s senior leader and former minister Madan Mohan Mittal maintained that SAD and BJP were never in alliance in Haryana, and hence there was no reason for bitterness in their relations.
“It is two separate states, and things are very clear between us. We are age-old allies and would remain so in Punjab. Even SAD is an integral part of the NDA, and would always remain so. Things did not work out in Haryana but that does not mean we would break ties everywhere,” said a senior SAD leader.
As per the seat sharing arrangement between the two, the two seats if Dakha and Jalalabad are in SAD share, while BJP fields its candidates on Phagwara and Mukerian.