After the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena split in Maharashtra last month, the ruling party could soon part ways with its oldest existing ally, the Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab.
A good show by the BJP in Haryana in the October 15 Assembly elections or the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) gaining at the cost of the BJP could end the alliance in Punjab, sources in the party have told The Hindu .
The SAD is backing Om Prakash Chautala’s INLD in the Haryana Assembly polls, which is creating friction between the SAD and BJP.
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“Not just our workers, even ordinary voters have felt the SAD should not have backed the INLD this time when the BJP has so much at stake in this election,” Punjab BJP president Kamal Sharma said.
Party leader Navjot Sidhu lashed out at SAD leaders in Panchkula last week while campaigning for the local BJP candidate calling them “backstabbers.” Mr. Sharma refused to comment on Sidhu’s statements.
Politically, the alliance has become a liability for the BJP in Punjab where the SAD-BJP government is in power for a second consecutive term that ends in February 2017 and facing heavy anti-incumbency. It is also an impediment in the larger Narendra Modi-Amit Shah plan that entails the BJP’s expansion into newer territories and capturing power.
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Testing the waters Riding high on its success in the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP wants to test the waters in Punjab as a separate player and not an appendage of the SAD.
In the State, the SAD contested 10 Lok Sabha seats and lost six while the BJP won two of the three seats where it contested.
A BJP panel to evaluate the losses blamed the SAD for the alliance’s poor showing, leading to heartburn between the two sides. Punjab has 117 Assembly seats of which the SAD contests 94 leaving 23 for the BJP. “Despite complaints of shoddy treatment by the Akalis from the State unit for years, the BJP central leadership remained aligned with the SAD because the arrangement had the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh’s backing. Now even the Sangh wants the BJP to stop playing second fiddle to the SAD,” a State leader said.
Differences The arrangement worked well with the SAD focussing on the rural and the Sikh votes while the BJP tried to garner the urban and the Hindu votes in the State.
In the last seven years, both parties have tried to expand into the other’s territory and vote base. Differences between the two sides continued to crop up from time to time but Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal performed the balancing act.
But even Mr. Badal expressed his irritation recently when the BJP poached former Punjab DGP P.S. Gill from the SAD fold and the announcement came from the party president Amit Shah at a function in Jammu.