Akali-BJP panel to look into swapping of LS seats

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 7

The Akali Dal leadership reportedly took up the issue of swapping parliamentary seats with national BJP president Amit Shah during his visit to the city on Thursday.

Sources say the issue concerns two seats — Ludhiana to be contested by the BJP and Amritsar by the Akali Dal. They say a six-member coordination committee of Akali and state BJP leaders will be formed soon to sort out the matter.

During a closed-door meeting with Shah, Akali patriarch Parkash Singh Badal and party president Sukhbir Badal raised several issues concerning the Sikh community as well as farmers, which had been “ignored” by the BJP since it stormed to power at the Centre in 2014.

Shah was on a visit to Chandigarh as part of his strategy to reach out to the alliance partners of the BJP, as the NDA gears up for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Over 25 top leaders and MPs from both Akali Dal and the BJP were present in the meeting that lasted almost three hours.

Initially, Shah had a closed-door meeting with the Badals. Though the two Akali leaders are learnt to have assured Shah that they were natural allies of the BJP, they are also learnt to have sought his intervention to resolve issues, which would help the alliance partners regain faith of the Sikh community and the state farmers.

The father-son duo is also learnt to have discussed the issue of providing justice to the perpetrators of the 1984 riots, the issue of blacklist of Sikhs, need for having more recruitments in the armed forces from Punjab, implementation of the Swaminathan Commission report and monetary relief for Punjab farmers. The Akali Dal also insisted that the fuel be brought under the ambit of GST so that the prices of both petrol and diesel are brought down. It was reportedly decided that a delegation led by Sukhbir will meet PM Narendra Modi on Friday to list out what exactly they want the government to do.

During a meeting with Akali MPs Ranjit Singh Brahmpura, Balwinder Singh Bhunder and Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, senior leaders Daljit Singh Cheema, Sikander Singh Maluka, Mahesh Inder Grewal and Bikram Majithia and BJP leaders Dr Anil Jain, Parbhat Jha, state BJP president Shwait Mailk, former president Vijay Sampla, Rajinder Bhandari, Kamal Sharma, Avinash Rai Khanna, Ashwani Sharma and former ministers Madan Mohan Mittal and Manoranjan Kalia and Tarun Chugh, Shah is learnt to have asked them to propagate how 62 lakh Punjabis have benefitted from the Centre’s schemes .

‘Will ally with BJP in Haryana’ 

Akali leaders are learnt to have assured the BJP that they would contest the election in Haryana with the BJP, and not with the INLD. “The INLD had snapped its alliance with us, we did not break ties with them. Since our support to the INLD in the last Assembly election in Haryana had become a sore point in our ties with the BJP, we will be contesting the next election in Haryana with them,” a senior SAD leader told The Tribune.

Highlight govt’s feats, workers told 

Chandigarh: National BJP president Amit Shah held a meeting with former presidents and party chiefs of all 13 Lok Sabha constituencies on Thursday. He asked the state unit to set up a coordination committee with its alliance partner — Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) — for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Shah said, “Ours is a permanent alliance, so let us have a committee comprising three members from each party and start working as a united front. As we are keeping the sanctity of our existing alliance, small issues, if any, should be sorted out by the coordination committee.” Sources said, “Shah asked party workers to reach out to the beneficiaries of different schemes launched by the Modi-led government and tell others about the party’s good work.” TNS