BJP aims for bigger role in Punjab, PM Modi expected to launch poll campaign with mega announcements

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 23

The BJP is expected to launch its Punjab campaign at a mega joint rally led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi “soon”, perhaps the beginning of next year, sources say.

The Prime Minister, who today addressed a gathering in his Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi in a headgear interestingly resembling a “turban”, is also likely to make “big announcements” at his rally in Punjab—the state where his party is trying to emerge from the shadows of estranged former ally Akali Dal and come into its own.

The rally will mark the point that the BJP is no longer the second fiddle to any party.

There will be big announcements, along with schemes/projects specific for the state and its people, they add.

“The Prime Minister has already given the biggest gift to farmers by rolling back the three farm legislations,” they say, adding that the new alliance with former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh-led Punjab Lok Congress will give the border state a “new lease of life, a new direction it deserves”.

“The next government in Punjab will include the BJP,” leaders, here claim, adding that the saffron party is looking to contest around 70-odd seats in the 117-member Punjab Assembly and emerge as the bigger player in the alliance.

With the Akalis, who had parted ways in the wake of the now-repealed farm laws, the BJP had remained limited to 23 seats with the senior leadership openly acknowledging them as the big brother in the NDA alliance in Punjab.

“The BJP is aiming for a bigger role in Punjab. Not only urban voters, farmers and rural Punjab will also support us,” they claim.

Meanwhile, the BJP is scouting for and gathering “winnable candidates” to contest in the state.

After the former SAD leader and president of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee Manjinder Singh Sirsa, recently a loyalist of Capt Amarinder Singh and former minister, Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi, joined the saffron party after quitting the Congress, accusing it of putting the state’s “security and communal harmony at stake”.

Sodhi said “only Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP can save Punjab”.

Security and communal harmony in the border state are expected to be among the top leads of the BJP’s narrative for upcoming Punjab elections.