The Hindu : New Delhi News : SAD to contest four seats as an ally of BJP

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SAD to contest four seats as an ally of BJP

Staff Reporter

Symbol issue still not finalised

NEW DELHI: The Shiromani Akali Dal will contest four seats as an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the upcoming Delhi Assembly elections. A decision to the effect was arrived at a meeting between senior leaders of the two parties on Friday.

Delhi unit SAD president Manjit Singh said the two parties have agreed that SAD would field its candidates from Shahdara, Adarsh Nagar, Rajouri Garden and Jangpura. While a broad agreement had been reached on the first three seats, the decision on the fourth was taken at the high-level meeting that was attended by SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal, Mr. Manjit Singh, BJP national general secretary and in-charge Delhi elections Arun Jaitley and chief ministerial candidate V.K. Malhotra.

While the two parties have still not finalised if SAD would contest on its own symbol or on that of BJP, they are likely to come out with a joint manifesto that would also reflect on the specific demands of SAD such as implementation of Punjabi as a second language and for bringing to book those responsible for the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

SAD has also made up its mind on at least two of the candidates. The party would be fielding Jitender Singh Shanti from Shahdara and Ravinder Singh Khurana from Adarsh Nagar. Incidentally, these are constituencies in which SAD does not have a very strong presence.

The party is yet to decide on its candidates from Rajouri Garden and Jangpura, both of which have a high percentage of Sikh and Punjabi voters.

In both these constituencies, SAD is confident of a good showing.

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