As talks of reunion gather steam, Jakhar hails Badal for stitching Akali-BJP alliance to ‘heal Punjab’

It was a move to heal a terror-torn state and ensure that Punjab never returned to the dark abyss of militancy, said Jakhar.

Jakhar was speaking at a gathering in the Badal village where the SAD organised a programme to mark the first death anniversary of Parkash Singh Badal. A five-time Punjab chief minister, Badal headed the party for over a decade before he passed away at 95 years of age in April last year.

Heaping praises on the SAD patriarch, Jakhar said Badal acted like a true statesman and rose above political differences to bond with the BJP ahead of the 1997 election. “The atmosphere in Punjab at that time was not particularly conducive for such an alliance… many would have said that this move would not be acceptable to the panth (Sikh community)… but Badal saab still did it because he knew the SAD-BJP alliance was the only way peace could return to Punjab and all divisions could be repaired,” said Jakhar.

The SAD and the BJP remained allies for more than two decades but parted ways in September 2020 when the Punjab-led farmers started a protest on the borders of Delhi against the three central farm laws brought in by the Modi government. The Akali Dal pulled out of the alliance in support of the agitation.

Jakhar’s glowing tribute to Badal gains significance in the light of a revival of talks between the two parties for an alliance ahead of the parliamentary election.

In the past week, Jakhar has mentioned an impending alliance with the SAD on multiple occasions while talking to media persons. On Friday, after flagging off Viksit Bharat Modi Ki Guarantee video vans at Chandigarh, Jakhar said the demand or call for the alliance was an “emotion of the masses”.

Last week, Jakhar said on a TV channel that he was all for such an alliance, but the final decision lay with the party high command. The two parties were in an advanced stage of seat sharing talks last month, but it was put on the back burner in the wake of the farmers’ agitation on the Shambhu border. However, with the agitation almost petering out, sources in the two parties said the two sides have revived talks and could announce seat-sharing arrangements in the coming days.

They added that there was a high possibility of an agreement on the BJP contesting five seats and the Akalis eight. In the earlier arrangement, the BJP contested three seats and Akalis 10.

The sources said that apart from contesting its three traditional seats of Amritsar, Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur, the BJP might contest Patiala and Ludhiana. That would leave the remaining seats of Anandpur Sahib, Bhatinda, Sangrur, Jalandhar, Fatehgarh Sahib, Faridkot, Ferozepur, and Khadoor Sahib to the Akalis.