The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has, for the first time since its dramatic exit from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in September 2020, openly made the case for a possible return to its former alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
SAD general secretary and former Punjab Minister Bikram Singh Majithia has said the people of Punjab were seeking a reunion of the two parties, arguing that their previous partnership had contributed to development, political stability and communal harmony in the state.
Majithia’s remarks came a day after his sister and Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal dropped a strong hint about a possible political realignment while addressing a party gathering in Sangrur to mark the 41st martyrdom anniversary of former SAD president Sant Harchand Singh Longowal.
Harsimrat stopped short of naming either the BJP or the NDA but spoke of alliances and political arrangements that had previously helped drive development in Punjab.
She said she would not spell out what was being discussed, adding that people would “come to know by themselves”. She also expressed hope that the political arrangements through which development projects had earlier been facilitated from Delhi could return to Punjab.
Her comments have assumed significance following a meeting between SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Parliament House earlier this month. The meeting had fuelled speculation that the two parties could be exploring the possibility of rebuilding their old alliance ahead of the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections.
Majithia sought to give Harsimrat’s comments a wider political meaning.
“What Harsimrat ji said is what people want,” he said, invoking the political partnership forged by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and SAD patriarch Parkash Singh Badal.
According to Majithia, the earlier SAD-BJP alliance represented a “brotherhood” aimed at maintaining communal harmony and strengthening Hindu-Sikh unity in Punjab. He argued that the partnership had delivered results both in the state and at the Centre.
The SAD had walked out of the NDA in September 2020 over the three contentious farm laws brought by the Modi government. The laws were subsequently repealed following a prolonged farmers’ agitation.
Majithia acknowledged that history but suggested that circumstances had changed.
“We parted ways due to farm laws and that is a fact,” he said, pointing to Punjab’s border situation, law and order, development and employment concerns as issues that were now prompting people to seek a rapprochement.
Whether the alliance actually returns, he said, would ultimately be decided by the leadership of the two parties and the political circumstances ahead.
Despite the increasingly conciliatory signals from the SAD, the BJP has so far maintained that it is preparing to contest all 117 Punjab Assembly seats in the 2027 elections.
Several senior Punjab BJP leaders have in recent months publicly spoken about building an organisation capable of fighting the election independently.
The potential seat-sharing formula could also prove to be a major stumbling block. Under the previous arrangement, the SAD contested 94 of Punjab’s 117 Assembly seats while the BJP fought 23. In Lok Sabha elections, the Akalis generally contested 10 seats and the BJP three.
Political circles are now buzzing with speculation that the BJP could seek a much more equal arrangement, possibly a 50:50 formula, rather than returning to the earlier equation in which the SAD was clearly the dominant partner in Punjab.
That would mark a fundamental shift in the balance of power between the former allies.
Signals of a Possible Thaw
Still, a series of recent developments has added fuel to speculation about a thaw.
Besides Modi’s meeting with Sukhbir Badal, the SAD has softened its position on some issues linked to the Centre’s delimitation and women’s reservation agenda.
There have also been signs of increased communication between the Badal family and the BJP’s top leadership.
Prime Minister Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh reportedly contacted Harsimrat after Sukhbir Badal was attacked in Nanded, Maharashtra. Harsimrat subsequently wrote to Shah seeking a CBI probe into alleged paper leaks in Punjab and an NIA investigation into the attack on her husband.
None of these developments amounts to a formal announcement of an alliance. But taken together, they have strengthened speculation that the political relationship between the two parties is being recalibrated.
For now, however, the BJP is proceeding with its own organisational preparations.
BJP national general secretary BL Santosh is scheduled to visit Punjab from August 23 to 26. His tour will take him to Patiala, Bathinda, Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar, where he is expected to meet district-level office-bearers and review the party’s organisational preparedness.
The visit comes after tensions surrounding the latest reorganisation of the Punjab BJP unit, with several senior leaders resigning.
It will also be Santosh’s first visit to Punjab since BJP president Nitin Nabin announced his new organisational team, appointing Satish Poonia as the party’s general secretary in charge of Punjab and Saudan Singh as joint general secretary (organisation) for the northern states.
The contrasting signals from the two parties leave the alliance question wide open. The SAD is publicly invoking the political benefits of its old partnership with the BJP, while the BJP continues to prepare for a solo contest.
With the 2027 Punjab election battle already beginning to take shape, whether the former allies can overcome their differences—and, crucially, agree on who gets to play the bigger role—could become one of the state’s most consequential political questions.
