By Charanjit Ahuja, Chandigarh
A coalition between the BJP and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) is likely to be formed ahead of the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections. The two parties are close to finalising a new alliance. This time, the BJP may take on the role of senior partner.
According to sources, seat-sharing talks between the two parties have progressed well. A key indication of this is that Shiromani Akali Dal has asked its leaders not to prepare for all seats in rural areas. In further signs of a possible pre-poll alliance in Punjab, senior BJP leader and Punjab BJP core committee member RP Singh recently met Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal in New Delhi. Singh called on Sukhbir Badal at the latter’s residence in Sultanpur to enquire about the health of the Shiromani Akali Dal President, who is currently recuperating at his Delhi farmhouse after he was attacked in Nanded, Maharashtra.
RP Singh admitted that the alliance issue was discussed during his meeting with Sukhbir Badal and that the only requirement was for the Shiromani Akali Dal to remain “positive, flexible and not rigid” with a spirit of give-and-take.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah have already indicated that BJP will no longer remain in the “chhota bhai” role in Punjab.
However, with Punjab’s assembly elections due early next year and speculation over a possible reunion between the BJP and Shiromani Akali Dal intensifying, the BJP publicly maintains that it plans to contest all 117 seats on its own.
Sources say that the tough posturing by BJP is to emerge as a senior partner or at least on an equal footing. The BJP knows it well that the SAD’s traditional base has weakened, the BJP has expanded its independent support among Hindu voters, and new political forces are competing for the Sikh and Panthic electorate.
The BJP national general secretary (organisation) BL Santosh, during a two-day visit to Punjab, said the party was fully prepared to fight independently and form the next government. Addressing a zonal organisational meeting in Patiala, he said Punjab was “ready for change” and that the BJP was prepared to seize the opportunity.
The statement came days after a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal triggered renewed speculation about a possible political reconciliation. Former Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal has also made remarks that were interpreted as signalling openness to an understanding with the BJP. SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia has separately said that people in Punjab want the two parties to come together again.
For now, however, the BJP is insisting that its preparations are based on going solo. Punjab BJP president Kewal Singh Dhillon has also ruled out an alliance, saying the party is ready to contest all 117 constituencies.
Santosh’s visit was primarily aimed at strengthening the BJP’s organisation ahead of the election. He held meetings in Patiala and Bathinda with party leaders and office-bearers and emphasised the need to strengthen the organisation down to the booth level. He also stressed the importance of presenting the policies and achievements of the Narendra Modi government to voters.
One of the challenges discussed internally is integrating long-time BJP leaders with leaders and workers who have joined the party from other political formations. At the Bathinda meeting, Santosh stressed the need for serving office-bearers to respect former office-bearers and work collectively.
The BJP’s aggressive posture was reinforced by national general secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Tarun Chugh, who said at an event in Fazilka that the party would contest all 117 seats.
The BJP’s organisational exercise will continue across the state, with meetings scheduled in Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar. The party is seeking to build a statewide organisation capable of fighting the election independently.
The question, however, is whether the BJP and SAD can afford to remain separate.
The two parties were allies for nearly 25 years and won Assembly elections together in 1997, 2007 and 2012. The alliance represented a political combination that broadly brought together the SAD’s Sikh support base and the BJP’s Hindu constituency.
Their relationship broke down over the farm laws introduced by the Narendra Modi government. With farmers in Punjab strongly opposed to the legislation, the SAD faced growing pressure from its core support base. Harsimrat Kaur Badal resigned from the Union Cabinet, and the SAD eventually left the NDA in September 2020.
The cost of going separate
The split proved costly for both parties, but particularly for the SAD. In the 2022 Assembly election, the SAD won only three seats, compared with 15 in 2017. The BJP, meanwhile, won two seats, down from three. The election was dominated by the Aam Aadmi Party, which swept to power with 92 of the 117 seats.
The vote-share figures tell a more complicated story. The SAD’s vote share fell from 25.2 per cent in 2017 to 18.5 per cent in 2022. The BJP, despite its reduced seat tally, actually increased its vote share from 5.4 per cent to 6.7 per cent.
This reflected an important change in Punjab’s political landscape. The SAD lost substantial support among sections of Jat Sikhs and Dalit Sikhs, while the BJP strengthened its position among Hindu voters. The party’s Hindu upper-caste support rose sharply, as did its support among Hindu OBC voters.
The 2024 Lok Sabha election reinforced this divergence. The SAD’s vote share fell dramatically, from 27.5 per cent in 2019 to 13.5 per cent, while the BJP’s increased from 9.6 per cent to 18.7 per cent. The BJP failed to win a seat, but its vote was geographically significant, leading in 23 Assembly segments. The SAD led in nine. Together, the two parties were ahead in 32 Assembly segments. Those figures have inevitably fuelled arguments within both parties that an alliance could improve their prospects in the 2027 Assembly election.
The arithmetic is particularly striking. Had the BJP and SAD votes been fully transferred to each other in 2022, the alliance could theoretically have won around 16 Assembly seats, compared with their combined actual tally of five. AAP would still have comfortably formed the government, but the opposition landscape would have been different.
The 2024 Lok Sabha numbers make the case for an alliance even stronger. With complete vote transfer, a BJP-SAD alliance could theoretically have won six of Punjab’s 13 parliamentary seats. Even with only partial transfer, the combination would have been considerably stronger than either party was separately.
Yet electoral arithmetic does not necessarily translate into political chemistry.
The SAD is facing an existential crisis. Its traditional support base has fragmented, while Sukhbir Badal’s leadership has faced criticism from sections of the party’s old guard. A parallel effort led by Giani Harpreet Singh seeks to revive what its supporters describe as traditional Akali values. Amritpal Singh’s emergence as a political force and the formation of Akali Dal (Waris Punjab De) have further complicated the contest for the panthic vote.
For the BJP, meanwhile, the calculation is different. The party has succeeded in consolidating a larger section of Hindu voters, but it remains viewed in sections of Punjab as a predominantly Hindu-oriented party. The political distrust created by the farm laws has not completely disappeared.
There is therefore uncertainty over whether the SAD’s Sikh vote would actually transfer to the BJP in an alliance. At the same time, BJP leaders may fear that the party’s Hindu voters would transfer more readily to an alliance candidate, giving the SAD greater benefit than the BJP.
The AAP government is attempting to exploit these contradictions. Punjab Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema dismissed the relevance of a BJP-SAD alliance, arguing that the BJP could not defeat the AAP whether it fought alone or with another party. He claimed that the AAP had fulfilled the five guarantees announced before the 2022 election and would improve on its previous performance.
Cheema also attacked the SAD over its record in government, referring to the controversy surrounding incidents of sacrilege and the drug problem and arguing that voters had not forgotten the Akali-BJP government’s record.
The political environment, however, is not entirely comfortable for the AAP. Issues including the drug menace, unresolved farmer concerns and the handling of floods have generated criticism.
United they gain
Yet the opposition remains divided, allowing the ruling party to benefit from the fragmentation of anti-incumbency votes. That is the central dilemma facing both the BJP and the SAD.
Separately, neither party has demonstrated that it can dominate Punjab’s complex political landscape. Together, they could combine complementary voter bases and potentially improve their seat tally. But the old alliance operated in a very different political environment.
For now, the BJP’s official position is clear: it is preparing to contest all 117 seats independently. Behind the scenes, however, speculation about a possible SAD-BJP reconciliation is unlikely to disappear.
The coming months will reveal whether the current talk is merely political posturing or the beginning of another alliance. For the BJP and SAD, the numbers suggest that joining hands could be useful.
(Authored by Charanjit Ahuja)
