BJP high command to decide on seat-sharing with Akalis: Malik

Sanjeev Singh Bariana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 17

State BJP president Shwait Malik said on Saturday that the party high command would decide the seat-sharing arrangement with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) for the 2019 parliamentary elections. The top brass will also take a call on the constituencies the party will contest from in Punjab, he added.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, BJP candidates had contested from three seats out of 13 – Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur and Amritsar. The saffron party had won the Hoshiarpur and Gurdaspur seats. However, the BJP had lost the 2017 Gurdaspur bypoll, which was necessitated by the death of party MP Vinod Khanna.

Speaking on the sidelines of separate meetings with the core group, the state executive and district presidents, Malik said: “We have sent inputs received from the field to the high command.”

“We are having meetings with the SAD leadership. We have repeatedly gone together to meet the Governor over the atrocities unleashed by the Congress government,” he said.

During Saturday’s meetings, suggestions and an action plan on setting up shakti kendras, one each for five polling booths, were discussed.

On the panchayat elections, the Rajya Sabha MP said, “These are not fought on the party symbol. However, it is evident that the Congress used force and other unfair means to win the zila parishad and panchayat samiti polls. We are not expecting any major change in the scenario in the panchayat elections as well.”