SAD to fight Assembly poll in Haryana alone

CHANDIGARH: The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) is set to fight the Assembly elections in Haryana without any alliance. The Akalis, which had snapped ties with its decades-old alliance partner, Indian National Lok Dal, last year, have decided to go it alone, and put up candidates even against its other alliance partner, BJP.

Ruchika M. Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 23

The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) is set to fight the Assembly elections in Haryana without any alliance. The Akalis, which had snapped ties with its decades-old alliance partner, Indian National Lok Dal, last year, have decided to go it alone, and put up candidates even against its other alliance partner, BJP.

The move to contest elections against BJP candidates is expected to have political repercussions on the alliance in Punjab and even at the Centre, where SAD is a partner in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. During the 2015 Assembly elections in Haryana, SAD had contested the poll in alliance with the INLD, raising the heckles of the BJP. The most vociferous critic of the Akalis, Navjot Singh Sidhu, was then used to campaign against them.

SAD today appointed its observers in Haryana and asked its leaders to mobilise its cadres for the poll scheduled in 2019, besides appointing senior Akali leader and MP Balwinder Singh Bhunder as party in charge for Haryana. SAD reappointed Sharanjit Singh Sahota head of the party’s Haryana unit.

Lok Sabha member Prem Singh Chandumajra was made observer for Ambala and Yamunanagar, Manjit Singh GK and Avtar Singh Hit for Faridabad, Palwal, Panipat, Rohtak, Sonepat and Gurugram, Sikander Singh Maluka for Fatehabad and Sirsa, Surjit Singh Rakhra for Jind and Kaithal, Bibi Jagir Kaur for Karnal and Kurukshetra, Parminder Dhindsa for Hisar and NK Sharma for Panchkula.

With this, they have made their intentions to contest against the BJP in Haryana clear. Though some senior Akali leaders hint that there could be a post-poll truck between the Akalis and the BJP, many believe that the “second move to oppose the BJP on the battleground Haryana will not be taken kindly by the saffron party”.

The party will be contesting around 55 of the 90 Assembly seats in Haryana. As many as 35 Assembly seats in Haryana have a sizeable presence of Sikh voters. This is the first time that SAD will be contesting the elections as a major player. Till the last Assembly poll, the party remained a fringe player in Haryana politics. It had an alliance with the INLD and contested two seats (Amabla and Kalianwali), winning one. But this alliance was snapped last year after the SAD-BJP (when they were in power) denotified the Sutlej-Yamnua Link (SYL) canal land in 2016 and handed it back to its original owners, that the INLD objected to. The political pot of the SYL canal kept boiling all through last year, and ultimately led to the two alliance partners parting ways.

SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal, who held a meeting with Akali leaders from Haryana, told The Tribune that they were striving to become a major player in Haryana. “Since the Akali Dal is a party of Punjabis, we are looking at providing a political leadership to the Punjabis settled in Haryana. The political leadership there is largely for Jats and Punjabis want an own political platform,” he said.

Sukhbir Badal said that besides Haryana, the party had also decided to contest all seats in Hanumangarh and Sri Ganganagar districts, which have a large number of Punjabi population, in the next Rajasthan Assembly elections.