Won't tie up with Shiromani Akali Dal, says Punjab BJP chief Ashwani Sharma

Muktsar, January 8

State BJP chief Ashwani Sharma today said the party won’t ever ally with SAD in the future.

He had come to Malout for the installation ceremony of the party’s newly appointed district chief Satish Asija. Muktsar is the home district of the Badals.

Addressing a gathering, Sharma said, “The BJP will never forge an alliance with SAD. We did not leave it, but it left us at a time when we needed their support. Further, it was not a political alliance, but a loss-making deal. Have you ever heard of a political alliance where a man is the CM and his son is a deputy CM? We got just 17 per cent share of seats in that alliance.”

He added, “Further, SAD made marred our image in villages. Even the Congress had not targeted us that much in rural areas. During our alliance with SAD, whenever our leaders visited any rural area, its leaders used to stop us. It was just because we were not contesting any election in the rural areas. Now, we will contest all 13 seats in the coming Lok Sabha elections and win.”

He further said some people were spoiling the BJP’s image and saying that the party was against Punjab and the Sikhs. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the man who opened the Kartarpur corridor, removed the names of some Sikh foreign nationals from blacklist, punished the culprits of the 1984 massacre, waived the GST on langar and celebrated all important religious days of the Sikhs. How can he be called an anti-Sikh or anti-Punjab man?” asked Sharma.

He criticised the government over law and order situation.